


aim your arrow at the sky

by freefallvertigo



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Cupid!13, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Most of Yaz's background from the show has been kept intact, Pining, also yaz is slightly dapper, listen 13 flies around in a leather jacket shooting people with arrows what's not to love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:06:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23314378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freefallvertigo/pseuds/freefallvertigo
Summary: Sheffield’s resident Cupid will never fall in love; will never know the love of another. That’s what she’s been told her whole life.But then she meets Yasmin Khan — the mystery she can't solve — and everything changes.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 65
Kudos: 146





	1. wayward little cupid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from ‘sky full of song’ by florence + the machine

It was the sound of a little girl crying that did it.

Quiver at her back, a woman unseen stalked the aisles of the supermarket and unsheathed an arrow. Above the shelves, sharp hazel eyes tracked their target. The world around her slowed when she nocked the arrow. The midnight-blue bow was comfortable in her hands; an extension of herself. A fifth limb. 

Walking parallel to a young man in his twenties, she drew back the bowstring with powerful arms. A woman was headed his way. Just as young. Twice as pretty. Neither of them watched where they were walking — their eyes on the shelves instead of ahead. Leather jacket creaking with the movement, the huntress stepped out from behind the pastry aisle and locked the man square in her sights. Serendipity. She liked the serendipitous ones, although in reality, no such thing existed. Fates were decided long in advance. Mortals so loved to entertain that notion of free will they clung to, though — and who was going to be the one to break the truth of it to them? Not her.

_Collision in three_.

She took a breath. 

_Two_.

Tightened her grip on the handle.

_One._

A child's piercing scream sounded clear as a bell throughout the shop the moment she released the bow. Horrified, she watched the arrow wobble as it sailed through the air. It pierced straight through the heart of a tin of beans, missing the mark by endless inches. Shoulders slammed into one another. A feeble apology was made. No second glances. No doubling back to ask for a number. A whole future — a whole intertwined timeline — erased. The archer closed her eyes, exasperated. The heavens would rain down on her for that one.

That child's scream had become a whimper. Curious as to the perpetrator of her misfire, she rounded the next corner. Two young girls were in the confectionary aisle. The older of the pair was on the floor and the youngest (her sister, presumably), was standing over her. It was the girl on the floor who was crying. Red-eyed, she shot to her feet and lunged for her sister while their weary mother deserted her shopping cart and tried to pull them apart.

"Yaz! Stop pulling your sister's hair! Sonya! Stop that!"

Invisible, the archer crouched by the bickering siblings. They hit out their hands aimlessly, thrashing wildly, screaming at one another much to their mother's obvious mortification. The archer placed her hands on their shoulders. Her palms glowed soft orange and that light pulsed once through the veins of both the young girls. Instantly, they calmed. Sniffling, the youngest — Yaz — wiped a tear from her face with her sleeve. Sonya ducked her head. 

"There!" their mother sighed. "Now say you're sorry. Both of you."

"Sorry," they each mumbled half-heartedly. 

Shaking her head, their mother took them both by their hands and led them away with threats of an early bedtime. The archer rose to her feet and watched them go with a frown. Something was off.

Without fail, whenever the archer touched a person, their hearts unfurled like a map beneath her touch. Maps to their past, present, future loves. Their connections, relationships; heartaches and heartbreaks and heart hopes. Indeed, when she'd placed her hand on Sonya's shoulder, her multiple possible futures were stretched out before her and the Doctor could follow them all the way to the end of her life. But Yaz—

When she touched Yaz, there was nothing.

* * *

In the years that followed that fateful encounter, Yaz became the archer's personal mystery to solve. At least, that's how it started.

As Sheffield's resident Cupid, her work kept her endlessly busy, but she didn't sleep. This solitary perk (or burden, depending on one's perspective) granted her the occasional respite from maintaining the hearts, fates, and futures of all under her domain and she dedicated those scarce moments to Yasmin Khan and her family.

The archer would check in on the young enigma every now and again, forever wondering if that day might be the day her heart finally opened for her. If she might as last solve the puzzle.

The child was one great big burning question mark emblazoned onto her mind. Never before had she touched someone and seen nothing; felt nothing. It frightened her. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out what it might mean. Even those who were not disposed towards romantic love had heart maps; paths leading to people they would love in other ways. Why not Yaz?

So, from afar, the archer watched this young girl grow up before her eyes and time after time she'd try again to get a read on her. Time and time again, she would fail. Three years went by as such.

During this time, she became a fly on the wall of the Khan family home. An unseen guest at family dinners. A silent audience to their scraps both petty and severe. A pacifying hand at a shaking shoulder. The archer didn't have a home, but that flat was starting to feel like the closest thing. When she wasn't working, she was usually there.

One night, she was perched on the roof of their complex, legs hanging over the edge of the building. No doubt soon, she'd have to move, but for right now she was taking a moment to enjoy the few bright stars in the sky; the fingernail moon and the breath of mist surrounding it. There was a rush of wind and a rustling of feathers. She looked to her side to find that she was no longer alone upon the roof. 

"Hey, Bill," she greeted with a smile.

Bill was a Cupid from London — of which there were multiple, given the population. As such, Bill often found herself with more downtime. Downtime she would, every once in a while, dispense on flying visits to old friends sitting alone on distant rooftops.

"All right, Doctor?"

Bill's name wasn't actually Bill.

The Doctor's name wasn't actually the Doctor.

Cupids weren't afforded official, individual names but they had developed a habit of nicknaming one another when they became friendly enough. The Doctor, catalogued in the system as D-013, was only named as such because of her affinity for Doc Martens. One particular pair of Doc Martens: all black aside from the red hearts painted on the leather and the striking, rainbow-hued laces. She never took them off. Originally, people had called her Doctor M, until the latter half of the nickname fell away for misuse.

Bill's name derived from her catalogue code: B-11L.

"Slow night?" the Doctor wondered. 

"Yeah, little bit." Bill pulled her knees up to her chest and gazed out at the city stretched below them. "This whole Netflix and chill palaver is really putting a spanner in the works for true love, init?"

"Ah, that's the modern age for you, Bill!" The Doctor gestured out at the brave new world they spoke of. "Everyone's falling in love over computer screens and blocks of text. Tellin' you, you wouldn't believe the amount of hearts I've had to shoot through an iPhone to get to."

"Not like the old days, is it?" mused Bill.

"Not much is."

The Doctor couldn't even remember how long she'd been walking the earth's shadows with a quiver of arrows slung over her back. Forever, maybe? Time was tricky to keep track of. Most Cupids just accepted that they had always been around and probably always would be. Easier not to question it. 

Easier for some.

They spent so long watching the world change around them but never were they allowed to immerse themselves in that world; never were they allowed to be a part of it for more than one day a year. Day in and day out, the Doctor dosed people with love — sometimes so much it was fatal — and she never once got a taste of that sweet poison herself. Cupids weren't supposed to want these things, but the Doctor forever found herself wanting. Some nights it felt like want was all she ever did.

"How's your girl? Family made peace yet or is it still a war zone down there?" Bill asked.

The Doctor had told Bill about her interest in the Khans a while ago. It wasn't unusual for a Cupid to attach themselves to certain people; to certain families. It staved off the loneliness. And sometimes exacerbated it. When Cupids would meet up, they'd ask their friends about their families as if they were really _their_ families. As if they actually belonged there. 

“Nah, they're all right for now. Peace in that household is always pretty precarious, mind," the Doctor divulged fondly. "You've not heard anythin', I take it?"

She'd asked Bill — a decidedly more sociable Cupid — to send out a message through the grapevine. A name. Yasmin Khan. The girl who gave nothing away. Ordinary, as far as the Doctor could tell. A twelve year old girl who clashed with her family and got all right grades and never stepped too far out of line. The Doctor certainly couldn't see anything amiss, so she hoped the name might ring somebody's bell out there.

"Still nothing. Sorry, mate," Bill said apologetically, disheartening the Doctor though she'd come to expect such a response. "I did hear something else, though. Not sure you're gonna like it."

"Brill," sighed the Doctor. "Go on then, let's have it."

"Well, apparently someone else had a similar issue ages back. Not sure if you ever met that Scottish bird. You know, the ginger one? Think her name was..." Bill clicked her fingers as she tried to recall. "Oh - Pandora!"

Memories were fickle sometimes.

For beings who had lived so incomprehensibly long, it could become understandably difficult to disentangle distinct articles from the endless blur of time like a thick fog in their minds. Better, sometimes, to let the past lie. The Doctor shrugged. 

"Anyway, this was way back during the Roman Empire. Remember that? Men in skirts! What a wicked age for fashion," Bill recalled sincerely. At the Doctor's raised brow, she pressed on. "Uh, but yeah, apparently she sent a similar message out along the vine. Came across some centurion without a pulse." 

Pulse was the term used amongst Cupids to refer to a person's interweaving futures, their heart maps, their infinite possible loves, the song in their souls that none were attune to except a higher being. 

"No one knew what it meant back then either. Only, a short while later, old ginger-locks dropped off the map. Never to be heard from again," Bill said in a hushed tone, like a kid telling horror stories around a campfire. "If you ask the higher ups about her, it's like she never even existed. Someone else is in her town, now. I know we get rotated every once in a while, but — she just vanished, apparently."

"Come on, get off it." The Doctor waved a dismissive hand. "The rumour mill's bad enough without two millennia's worth of Chinese whispers folded into the mix."

Bill shrugged. "I remember her, though. Didn't until somebody brought her up, but I do now. And I checked for you, 'cos I'm a great friend like that. It's true, Doctor. She's gone. Not even a code in the system."

"We don't just disappear, Bill," refuted the Doctor.

"So, where'd she go?"

* * *

Bill's story got to the Doctor. 

The more she thought about it, the more she realised that yes, she did remember a fiery redhead named Pandora. She'd presided over a small Scottish village back during the days of the Roman Empire. The Doctor thought they might have been friends once. Who could say? Remembering was tough. But never had she heard of such an instance, wherein a Cupid had simply disappeared without a trace. It worried her. 

While the Doctor had grown fond of the family, and still had not gotten to the bottom of the mystery that was Yasmin Khan, she made the call to leave them behind. They weren't her family, anyway. Could never be. 

So the Doctor let them be. She returned to the shadows, the streets, the dingy corners of heaving bars and sweaty nightclubs.

Untethered.

Homeless.

Time marched on like an arrow and so did she. For five years, she marched. Sometime during that fifth year, she found herself marching the halls of a high school, out through a set of doors which opened up to the track and the field beyond.

Two high school sweethearts flirted behind an outbuilding, smoking an illicit joint and laughing way too loudly at what was unlikely to have been very funny. The Doctor saw their pulses swim in the air around them — abuzz, magnetised. Theirs, the Doctor knew, was to be what she called a figure-eight love. Their whole lives, they'd be chasing one another back and forth. Always in love, but never quite at the right time. 

Waiting until the boy had his back to her, the Doctor shot her arrow clean through his heart, where it passed through him straight into the girls' own chest. She passed him the toke with a shy smile. _Ah, young love_.

"Good luck," muttered the Doctor. Fifteen years old. They had no idea what was coming.

The Doctor was about to make herself scarce when she spotted her - and she knew it was her right away, despite how much time had changed her. Yasmin Khan. Taller, different hair, shirt and blazer. But it was her. The Doctor was confronted with the inexplicable urge to rush over, to ask about her family, to catch up as if they were old friends. She didn't. Obviously. 

Yaz was hurrying across the yard and even at a distance the Doctor could see it was not eagerness motivating her but something else. In the background, in the very direction from which Yaz was rushing, the Doctor saw a girl. The girl was laughing. Cruelly so.

Pit in her stomach, the Doctor followed Yaz all the way to the girls' bathroom. Yaz locked herself away inside a stall and the Doctor hovered by the sinks, wondering what she was even still doing there when — sobbing. Muffled, like she had a hand over her mouth, like she was trying so hard to choke it back. The Doctor felt her heart make a nest out of her throat.

For three years she'd watched over this girl; tried in whatever small ways to protect her from harm and done all she could to salve her small hurts. And now here she was in the world without the Doctor's protection. Crying alone in a bathroom stall.

When Yaz finally emerged, she stared at herself in the mirror, holding wet paper towels to her eyes to ease the swelling beneath them. The Doctor, lifelong studier of human behaviour, knew the look on her face well. Self-loathing. Desolation. Hopelessness. This was not an uncommon affliction amongst teenagers; nor was it the Doctor's problem. But it was _Yaz_.

And so followed that old familiar instinct she hadn't realised she still housed — the one that urged her to mend Yaz's pain and help this poor girl who she had so callously abandoned all those years ago (not that Yaz would ever have even noticed her presence, never mind her absence).

The Doctor felt a building pressure at her back, a brief second of agony, and then an untold relief. She stretched her technicolour wings, forged from pure light and feather, and breathed a deep sigh with her head tilted skyward. Some Cupids liked to have their wings on display at all times. Some liked to feel like they were just another human in and amongst the crowd. For the Doctor, it varied from day to day. 

Presently, she plucked one of the luminous feathers from her wings, wincing only a little when it detached. Kaleidoscopic in her palm, the feather pulsed with all the colours of the universe. Delicately, she tucked the feather into Yaz's hair. To bring her lightness of heart.

To ease the burden. 

The second she did so, Yaz caught her own eye in the reflection of the mirror. The Doctor watched her visibly steel herself. With a deep intake of breath and a long exhale, Yaz braced herself and then turned on her heels, making for the door with her head held high. 

"Go get 'em, champ."

* * *

The Doctor couldn't help, after that, but keep an eye on her young conundrum. 

Not so much as before — she didn't frequent Yaz's flat; didn't want to grow too attached to her family again - but just enough to keep tabs. Mostly, she'd swing by the high school when she felt like checking in. It didn't take long for the Doctor to surmise the apparent source of Yaz's strife.

One Izzy Flint.

She had taken Izzy's pulse on day one. Unsurprisingly, hers was a weak one. Queen Bee was destined to settle in life. No great flame. No epic love. Mundanity was to be her lot. The Doctor tried to convince herself that such a fate was punishment enough for her crimes against Yasmin Khan. She reminded herself that she was not supposed to intervene in the everyday affairs of mortals; that it was beneath her. And yet—

And yet almost every day she watched this miniature tyrant make life hell on earth for Yaz and after a few months of helplessly observing this, interceding became impossible to resist. So one day she didn't bother.

It happened during drama class.

By some stroke of substitute teacher genius, Yaz and Izzy had been paired up to to read out a scene from Romeo and Juliet in front of their peers. It wasn't hard for the Doctor to read the subsequent vibe in the room during this performance. The sniggering. The poking fun. Yaz's unfettered humiliation as she had to be the Romeo to her bully's Juliet. To the teacher's apparent ignorance, Izzy read all of her lines with no small measure of sarcasm. 

The Doctor's fury felt white hot beneath her skin. 

She didn't meddle. Ever. For one thing, she never typically cared enough to do so. For another, it was absolutely against every rule in the book. But Yaz's suffering was something she couldn't abide.

Part-way through the performance, the Doctor unsheathed an arrow at the back of the classroom. Just as Yaz pressed on through some painful monologue about star-crossed love, the Doctor shot an arrow through Izzy Flint's heart. Smug, she watched Izzy falter, stammer over her next line, peer up at Yaz as if really seeing her for the first time. When the scene was over, Izzy hurried back to her seat without further remark. She was silent for the remainder of the lesson.

Izzy's pulse changed, then.

It thrummed harder. Spanned further. Her future shifted. Probably, the Doctor had just done them both a favour. Izzy's love for Yaz would fade — she'd made sure to aim just a little left of centre - but it wouldn't leave her unchanged. To love someone so good scarcely did.

A flash like thunder. A blinding light flooding the room. The Doctor shielded her eyes with her hand and winced; impaired vision adjusting just enough to make out the wall opening up like a door. Reality fissured and the class continued on as normal. Why wouldn't they? These events were not taking place on their plane. A lone silhouette appeared in the doorway. As the light partially dulled, the Doctor dropped her hand and regarded her visitor.

Sharp jawline, wickedly sculpted brows, black umbrella swinging in her hand. Her tailored pantsuit shimmered with colours not of this world. The woman approached, heels echoing on linoleum, and came to a stop right before the Doctor. She sighed melodramatically.

"Someone's been a very bad Cupid," the woman proclaimed with a pout.

"Missy?"

The Mistress was one of the superiors; a Love Lord (and a notorious one at that). Everybody knew she wasn't to be trifled with, and that usually if you were seeing her, you'd done something very wrong indeed. The Doctor, offending bow still at hand, did her best to mask her blatant guilt.

Missy turned to the side and gestured at the hole in the fabric of reality. "Step into my office, dear."

* * *

Missy's office was not so much an office as it was an unbound region of space and time. The Doctor knew they must be somewhere in the Crystal Citadel because that's where the Lords dwelled, and yet she couldn't say which plane of existence — which dimension or universe — the citadel resided in. Only that all Cupids were forged here; wings bestowed upon them and destines decided by the vortex.

The room had a hazy quality to it, as if it weren't entirely real. Certainly, it didn't feel as solid as earth. Light spilled over the bookshelves lining the walls, the dark wood of the furniture, every exposed inch of their skin. The source of the light was unknown and yet it painted everything orange and gold.

The Mistress (she'd earned the nickname because she was the Love Lord of infidelity and affairs), eased herself onto the throne behind her grand desk. "Sit," she commanded.

The Doctor chose to stand.

Missy arched a brow. "Very well. Oh, it has been a while since we've had such a wayward little Cupid," she purred, bordering on amused. "I'm a tad excited. Aren't you?"

"What am I doing here?" demanded the Doctor. "It's been centuries since you lot asked to see me."

"Well, dear, it's been centuries since we've needed to. But we upstairs have noticed a few... _irregularities_ in your behaviour these past few years." Missy's perfectly manicured fingernails drummed the surface of her desk. "Haven't quite had our finger on all the right pulses, have we?”

"Dunno what you mean," the Doctor denied with a shrug.

"Hm." The curl of Missy's lip was nothing short of glacial. "Let's see."

Missy opened up a huge leather book sitting in the centre of her desk, embossed on the cover with the Doctor's catalogue code and the volume number. She parted the book to her desired page straight away and perched a pair of glasses on her nose that the Doctor reckoned were only for show. 

"First hiccup was about seven years ago — should still be fresh as a daisy. Supermarket blunder. An arrow that never quite made it home. Pity." Missy's eyes cut sharply towards the Doctor. "Theirs was to be a grand love."

"Ah, we all miss every now an' again, don't we? Nature of the job. Win some, lose some." The Doctor was perhaps laying her faux-casual tone on a little too thick, but her nerves betrayed her when she plucked absently at her bowstring. "Why bring this up now? Why not pull me on it when it happened?"

"Well, as you said, sometimes a Cupid misses the mark. It's undesirable, but forgivable. If it happens once." Book at hand, Missy got to her feet and flipped through the pages as she rounded the desk towards where the Doctor stood. "In the years since this encounter, however, there have been one or two instances wherein you've scarcely made your appointments by the skin of your teeth. Hovering, as it were, at a tiny little flat belonging to Najia and Hakeem Khan. I did my homework on them. They're nobodies. Care to shed some light?"

An unprecedented anger bloomed in the Doctor's chest when Missy referred to Yaz's parents as nobodies. She held her tongue. "It's not them, it's their daughter. Yasmin Khan. Do your homework on her, too?"

Missy smiled darkly but said nothing.

"I ran into her years ago and — it's the weirdest thing. She doesn't have a pulse. No fate map. Nothing." At that, Missy's stony exterior fractured for a millionth of a second before mending itself right before the Doctor's eyes. "I've never come across anythin' like it. None of the others I've spoken to know what to make of it, either. Thought if I just monitored her—”

"Monitoring the humans is not your job, D-013. Your job is clean cut. You're a Cupid, for heaven's sake. Take a pulse, shoot an arrow, move on." Missy slammed the book shut and deposited it onto the desk behind her. "If there's no pulse - well, there's no job. One less heart to worry about, if you ask me. We can't go fretting about every poor little mortal we stumble across. There simply isn't world enough and time, dear."

"I know how to do my job," the Doctor simmered. "I can keep an eye on her and still—”

"When you say 'keep an eye', you do of course mean piercing her high school bully's heart with an arrow not meant for her? Tell me, did you read Isobel Flint's pulse?" inquired Missy, nose inches from the Doctor's, stormy eyes inescapable.

The Doctor flexed the muscles in her jaw.

"Well?"

"Yes," she replied through gritted teeth.

"Ah, excellent. So you haven't _completely_ forgotten how to do your job." Missy threw her hands up as if thankful for the small victory. "And before you used her for target practice, did Miss Flint's pulse give any indication of leaning towards Yasmin Khan? Any at all? Had she the slightest sliver of affection for the girl?"

"No."

"No." Missy slammed the tip of her umbrella down on the floor so hard the Doctor felt the room tremble. "So why on _earth_ did you bloody well shoot her? Do I really need to go back to basics and explain how meddling with the fate of one is meddling with the fate of all? Have you really regressed so far? You used to be one of our best and now look at you! Your heart's bleeding all over the place. I cannot stand a bleeding heart. Hence why our arrows spill not a drop."

The Doctor gripped her bow with white knuckles. "Not sure what y'expect me to do. I shot her. It's done. Y'know I can't take it back now."

"Quite right. The damage has been done. We up here are going to have to closely monitor the situation now; make sure it doesn't interfere with any of the major fates in place." Missy perched on the edge of her desk and shook her head. "Thank you very much for that extra paperwork, by the way. I do so appreciate carpel tunnel. And as for you, madame."

The Doctor awaited her sentencing with her head held high. Would they imprison her for this? Would they do worse? She thought of Pandora's disappearance and wondered — not for the first time — if a Cupid could be killed. Surely, what could be created could be destroyed. And would that really be so bad? She'd lived - how long? Forever? So much of it alone. An eternity half forgotten, for the most part spent simply distracting herself from her own miseries and forbidden dreams through whatever means possible. Would it be so bad for it all to come to an end?

Would it be so bad to rest?

Apparently, Missy had no intentions of being so solicitous. "Stay away from Yasmin Khan."

The Doctor blinked; frowned. "But she's—”

"If she hasn't a pulse, it's probably just a teensy error on our part," claimed Missy.

"You don't make errors," the Doctor rebutted.

"Not often. Once in a millennium, perhaps." Missy held a finger to her lips. "Shh. Don't tell."

"So you'll fix it?"

"Cross my heart," promised Missy with all the sincerity of a wolf among sheep. "Don't you worry your pretty little head. We'll sort it all out on our end. All you have to do — and it's really very simple — is never go near that girl again. Okay, dear?"

"But—”

"I'm not actually asking." Missy pointed the sharp tip of her umbrella at the Doctor's chest. "You're not to see her again. Not to watch over her. Not to meddle. We're not guardian angels — heaven forbid. Those idiots are far too sentimental. They think us soft but we both know that love is a brutal game, don't we? Of course, if you wanted to put in for a transfer, I'm sure we could review your case in a few centuries. You know how backlogged these waiting lists can get."

It was all the Doctor could do not to roll her eyes. "I don't want a transfer."

"Great! So then just keep on doing your job. One day, young Miss Khan will be nought more than a memory. And then — not even that."

Missy spoke like it was a good thing — something to rejoice over — and yet the Doctor couldn't help but feel dampened. Yaz's family had been a comfort for her and the idea that she might have been helping somebody, that she might have been making a difference outside of enforcing the set paths drawn up by some higher deity, had been a nice feeling. One she was about to lose for good. Even when she'd kept her distance before, at least she knew she always had the option to return.

Still, it wasn't wise to defy a Lord. "Fine," she yielded. "I'll leave her alone."

"Excellent. Now, off you pop!" Missy clapped her hands and the wall tore open with an almighty sound like a building collapsing. "With a spot of luck, you and I won't meet again for centuries."

_With a spot of luck_ , thought the Doctor as she retreated into the blinding light, _we'll never meet again_.

* * *

Directly defying her gut, the Doctor obeyed Missy's instructions.

She didn't trust that woman as far as she could throw her, but in all likelihood she'd been right. A mistake had been made somewhere. A mistake that would be rectified. The Doctor had seen an enigma in Yaz because that's what she'd wanted. Something to distract her from the grim, lonely truth of her own existence. She didn't know of any other Cupids that so despised the nature of their being, but then she didn't suppose any of them would confess to it if they did. Not unless they wanted a visit from Missy.

So, that day, the Doctor walked out of Yaz's high school and never looked back. She pushed Yaz and her warm family and their cosy flat far from her mind. All they were to her was a bitter reminder of that which she coveted but would never be privy to anyway. She was doing herself a favour by leaving them behind.

From there on out, she became the perfect angel of love. No more misfires. No more tardiness. No distractions. She didn't involve herself in the individual dramas of the humans; only took their pulses and shot her arrows.

A further four years passed that way.

It was Valentine's Day.

February 14th was a day eagerly anticipated by all Cupids across the globe. It was the one day of the year when they weren't on the clock; when they became visible to the naked mortal eye and could mingle with whomever and do whatever they pleased. 

It was custom that she, Bill, and a handful of other Cupids from their cluster would meet up. They'd drink and dance and engage in those very human rituals they pretended not to envy them for.

Valentine's Day was the day the Cupids allowed the humans to live and love without pulling any invisible bowstrings on their behalf. It was a day for them to choose; a day for them to potentially manufacture their own destinies. Sometimes, a person's fate would change drastically on Valentine's Day — for better or for worse. But it was their design. Their own choice to make. Zero Cupid intervention. 

There was always a shit tonne of work to do the following day, but that was a problem for then. February 14th was dedicated solely to indulging in whims and getting merry. 

It was the Doctor's turn to host her cluster at Sheffield. Sheffield was notoriously great for students, which made it an interesting venue for ancient angels of love, but then this was their one night to go wild. Mostly, they didn't care where they ended up. 

Before the others arrived, she and Bill spent the day in the town centre. They ordered food just to talk to the cashiers and bought clothes just for the novelty of trying them on in the dressing room — though the Doctor never actually deviated from her one outfit: rainbow striped T-shirt, high waisted jeans, Doc Martens.

She also habitually sported a black leather jacket which matched said Docs (hearts hand-painted onto the fabric and a rainbow sheen to the buttons). A Cupid could change their clothes on a notion; could adopt a different outfit for every day of the year if they so pleased. The Doctor didn't think she'd changed hers since the 80's.

Later that day, she and Bill headed to the bar. It was bustling. Valentine's Day had fallen on a Friday this year. As host, it was tradition for the Doctor to get the first round of shots in, and so began the night. It usually always went down the same way. 

For a while, they'd all catch up with one another and remark at how desperately they'd been needing this day off and how much they missed one another. Sometimes, they'd talk about work — about how particularly tragic a fate they'd sealed was, or about how they'd pierced the heart of some A-lister. Usually, however, they tried to steer clear of shop talk. Inevitably, once all the catching up was through with, all the Cupids ever wanted to do was mingle with the humans. Have a taste of their life.

Be seen, heard, touched. 

Bill was right in there, as usual, making a beeline for the first pretty woman who gave her the eyes. Usually, the Doctor would go to a club. She liked the noise and the press of bodies; the heaving crowd like a current she couldn't swim against. She liked that the alcohol and the drugs actually worked; liked that she was finally able to make herself feel something. Occasionally, she'd fall into bed with somebody and sometimes it was worth it and sometimes she'd rather have had another pill. This time was different. 

The night was still young when, just as the Doctor turned away from the bar with a drink in hand, somebody slammed right into her and spilled the contents of her glass right down the front of her shirt.

"Shit, sorry!" came a distantly familiar voice.

When wide, dark eyes found her own, the Doctor forgot to notice the beer staining her clothes. She forgot to notice the glass falling from her hand and shattering on the ground. 

Yasmin Khan was looking her right in the eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well lemme know if this is something u guys are interested in cos i do have a few ideas for it
> 
> ps i do wanna clarify that the doctor has had zero romantic feelings for yaz up til this point for obvious reasons
> 
> find me on tumblr: freefallthirteen


	2. don't forget your wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey i know it's been a while but i'm back to this now n i have plenty of ideas so !! please enjoy x

"Are you okay?" Yaz grabbed a stash of napkins from on top of the bar and began to pat uselessly at the Doctor's soaked tee. "I'm so sorry — I were in a world of my own.”

The Doctor only stared at Yaz as she clumsily attempted to help; startled silent. _Of all the gin joints in all the world_. Because really, what were the odds? She'd tried to keep from thinking about Yaz for the better part of five years. Succeeded, most of the time. 

Only to collide with her here, now, in a small bar all the way across town from her flat on the one day Yaz could finally see her, too. What was she now — twenty? Twenty one? She looked a lot older than the last time she'd seen her, especially in the eyes. A far cry from the weeping child she'd stumbled across on the floor of a supermarket or the alienated sixteen year old hiding out in the girls' bathroom of her high school, at any rate. 

"That's probably not helped very much, has it?" sighed Yaz, penitent. She dropped the soggy napkins on the counter and afforded the barman a polite, regretful smile when he stepped in to sweep up the broken glass. "Let me buy you a drink?"

The Doctor realised Yaz was addressing her. Looking at her. In the eyes. How many times had Yaz looked right through her in the past, sightlessly gazing through her ribs or her chest or her chin - depending on her height at the time? Mouth dry, the Doctor cleared her throat and forced herself to expel that dumb look from her face. "Wh — no. Oh, no, don't be daft. I'm proper clumsy sometimes. Were my fault."

"Can promise you it wasn't," Yaz assured her with a self-deprecating laugh. "Please? It'll make me feel a lot better if y'just let me make it up to you."

A shock as yet to dissipate rendered the Doctor unable to come up with a good enough reason as to why Yaz _shouldn't_ buy her a drink. Mind blank, the Doctor was nodding her head before she could think to stop herself. "Yeah, okay. Sure."

Yaz's face lit up and she pulled her wallet out, waiting to flag someone down at the bar while the Doctor just kind of stood there and watched her. Yasmin Khan. At a bar. With an ID. Had it really been so long? 

"So, uh, you out for Valentine's Day?" asked the Doctor, trying her best to sound nonchalant. One of the many voices scratching against the door at the back of her mind suggested with no small quantum of alarm that she really ought to leave. Missy's icy, turbulent eyes came to mind. Apparently, Cupids weren't monitored on Valentine's Day - but did she truly believe that? It seemed too solicitous a gesture for the Lords to make. Reckless, too. 

"What? Oh, nah." Yaz wrinkled her nose at the notion as though it were absurd. "Definitely not. I'm celebrating, actually."

"Celebrating?"

At last, Yaz managed to catch the attention of the bartender. "Hi, two pints please?" She shifted her eyes and again the Doctor was baselessly taken aback when they landed on her own. "Passed my probation today. Two long bloody years but I'm finally a proper copper." 

"You — you're in the police?" clarified the Doctor.

Of all the routes the Doctor had imagined Yaz taking (and there had been many), never once had she thought to entertain the possibility that she might end up in the force. Yaz had always been tough, but in a quiet, stubborn way. Inwardly strong. The kind of strength some found so easy to overlook. Now, it seemed that strength had manifested itself outwardly, too. 

Not just because she'd joined the police, toned up, and donned a leather jacket; rather because she seemed confident in a way the Doctor had scarcely before witnessed in her. She gave off the air of being at ease in her own skin. The Doctor used to worry Yaz would fold in on herself and let the world leave her behind (or else leave the world behind herself). She was so happy that wasn't the case. 

"Relax, I'm off duty." Yaz smiled affably, handing her cash to the bartender and sliding the Doctor's pint across the bar towards her. "I'm Yaz, by the way." She held out her hand. 

She held out her hand, and the Doctor thought, _finally._ Finally, she was going to be able to get a read on this girl whose heart had for so long remained some elusive secret. Those impenetrable fortress walls were about to crumble at long last and all the Doctor had to do to procure that long-denied closure was reach out, take her hand, and—

_Oh, you've_ got _to be kidding._

Nothing.

The Doctor closed her hand around Yaz's (her grasp was surprisingly firm; palm still damp with the condensation of her glass) and she felt nothing. No pulse. Not even a murmur. 

"I'm the Doctor," she introduced herself distractedly, frowning at that hand. That hand that should have been an open door but was instead a brick wall. God, she had half a mind to take a sledgehammer and knock it down herself.

Missy had lied. She'd vowed to fix Yaz and that was the sole reason the Doctor had absolved herself of the guilt she may have felt about leaving her behind. It didn't make sense. If the Lords had made a mistake, surely they'd want to fix it straight away to avoid any further complications in surrounding fatelines. Surely, Yaz was a crease to be smoothed over.

How long could it take to weave her a new destiny? Not this long. Which meant there must have been some reason for Yaz's lack of pulse. But what kind of life was that? Pulseless. Loveless. Unbound.

"The Doctor?" Yaz took her hand back and the Doctor followed it with her eyes. "That your real name?"

"More of a nickname," the Doctor clarified, lifting her gaze at last, “‘cause of the boots.”

"Right." Yaz's confusion gave way to amusement as she looked down at the Doctor's shoes. "Noticed them before, actually. They're ace. Same as your jacket. You design 'em yourself?"

"Uh, yeah. Yes. All my design. Sucker for love, me." The Doctor took a sip of her pint and used the time to scan the room for Bill. She wanted her to see this. Touch Yaz. Take her pulse. The Doctor had to know she wasn't going mad. Or glitching. Could Cupids glitch? It didn't matter anyway because Bill was nowhere to be seen; in all likelihood she'd left with the young woman she'd spent half the night chatting up. 

"Fan of Valentine's Day, I take it?" Yaz assumed, picking up her own pint. 

The Doctor gave up searching for Bill. Searching for any of them. The table they'd previously occupied was now empty and she couldn't see a single face she recognised in the crowd. "Would you believe me if I told you I dress like this all the time?" 

"Actually," said Yaz, "I would."

She gave the Doctor a purposive once over as she lifted her glass to her lips and the Doctor's mind slowed. Was she — was Yaz _checking her out_? Her grip on her pint tightened. This night was taking a very odd turn. 

"You here alone, then?" asked Yaz, her air of mild curiosity impressive but not Cupid-proof. 

"Me? Nah. With a big group." The Doctor paused. "Or, I was. Seems they've all taken flight. Should probs do the same."

"Least finish your pint. You can come sit with us, if you like," proposed Yaz with a shrug. "I'm just with a couple of mates over there."

She gestured her pint towards the back of the room and the Doctor followed her eyes towards a booth in the corner occupied by a majority share of men. One of them, roughly Yaz's age, saw Yaz turn and sent her a not-so-subtle cheeky wink. The Doctor turned back just in time to see Yaz roll her eyes at him. Not romantic then, thought the Doctor. Friendly.

"Oh, no, I shan't impose. You're celebrating!" refused the Doctor. "And congrats, by the way. I meant to say so."

"Really, Doctor, have a drink with us. Sod your mates if they've scattered." She put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder and the Doctor actively did not make a single sign that she'd registered it. "We'd love to keep you company."

"I don't—”

"Just one?"

The Doctor knew she really shouldn't; knew that it was dangerous. She risked the wrath of the heavens above if she defied their direct orders so brazenly. But they had _lied_ to her. They were hiding something — and all of her friends had gone off in search of their respective hedonistic pursuits, and the idea of getting wasted and finding a nameless stranger to hook up with was fast losing its appeal, and she wanted answers. So screw it.

"All right," she acquiesced, “one drink."

* * *

"So, what do you do, Doc?' one of Yaz's friends, Ryan (the same man the Doctor had caught winking at Yaz earlier), was asking.

The Doctor was now on her third drink. She kept meaning to make her excuses and leave but the more she learned about Yaz's life in the time she'd been keeping her distance, the more she wanted to know - as if every scrap of information might be another piece of the puzzle.

And yet her life seemed relatively normal. Her friends and colleagues all had pulses and she knew her family did, too — so, why was Yaz the persistent exception?

"Oh, me? I fly around the city shootin' arrows into people's hearts, making 'em fall hopelessly in love." She always told the truth because nobody ever believed her. As ever, the revelation was met with a sea of blank faces at the table.

"You're proper strange, you," remarked Ryan.

"Thanks!" she beamed. The Doctor knew she was odd; it's not like she interacted with humans much. She probably could have made more of an effort at fitting in but she'd never taken the time to learn exactly how. It seemed a futile task, given she'd only be able to employ such a skill one day a year (and for people who, in all likelihood, would have forgotten all about her come sunrise the following day).

She noticed Yaz watching her out of the corner of her eye all night and thought it some kind of cosmic joke. The Doctor was usually the silent observer. Now, the tables had been turned — although at least the Doctor was _aware_ she was being watched. She began to wonder if their collision back at the bar had been entirely unintentional, after all.

Ryan continued to ask her personal questions about herself and occasionally, if he'd turn the conversation around to her love life, she'd catch Yaz sending him a look or booting him under the table. The Doctor did her best at deflecting such conversations.

A couple of drinks later, Yaz turned to the Doctor. "Fancy a bit of fresh air?”

"Sure."

The Doctor followed Yaz through the crowd and to the gated smoking area out front, which contained a few picnic benches and what must have been half the bar's patrons. Rainfall from earlier in the night left the cobbled streets slick and lethal; more so for the stilettoed students stumbling from bar to bar. 

With no place to sit, they opted instead to stand against the wall. The Doctor didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she bummed a cigarette from someone who definitely wasn’t old enough to be drinking just to keep from fidgeting. As she cupped her hands around the flame and leaned into it, she felt Yaz’s eyes on her once more. This time, she didn’t ignore them. She looked up. Their eyes met, and Yaz exhibited no indications of embarrassment at having been caught watching.

"Can't believe your mates just bailed like that," she said, leaning against the brick.

"Nah, it's kinda tradition. Every Valentine's Day we all get smashed together and by the end of the night, everyone's gone their own way looking for — well." The Doctor smiled sheepishly. "Y'can probably guess."

"Weird tradition," mused Yaz. "Take it that means you're single?" She was good, thought the Doctor, at masking her genuine interest with a kind of cool indifference. She wasn't even looking at the Doctor; was instead watching the gaggle of girls taking a selfie at the nearby table. And yet the Doctor was a Cupid. She was very much attune to the intrigue of another, masked or not. Still, her obvious attraction to the Doctor caught her off guard. It's not what she'd been expecting. Not from Yasmin Khan. She didn't actually know how to feel about it. 

"Single. Yes. That's me," the Doctor confirmed. "Perpetually so, it would seem." 

Yaz ducked her head when she spoke next but the Doctor could still make out the faintest of frowns playing over her features. "Yeah, been single for a while myself," she confessed.

_But not forever_.

Which meant that she had been in a relationship. Which meant that somewhere out there, there was at least one other pulse which entwined with Yaz's. Probably more. Except how was that possible if she didn't have one herself? The more she got to know Yaz, the less she understood.

"Does make the job easier but, y'know—” Yaz kicked the heel of her boot against the ground absently— "you do miss it sometimes, don't you? Parts of it, anyway."

Did she? Could she really miss something she'd never had? Missing something, she knew, was not the same as craving it. The Doctor only offered an empathic smile in return and took another drag of her cigarette, unable to think of anything of value to add to the conversation.

"You from around here then?" asked Yaz.

"Kind of," replied the Doctor, non-committal. "I flit about."

"Right. On your Cupid's wings, I forgot," recalled Yaz with faux-seriousness. 

“Listen, Yaz, it's a very demanding job," the Doctor said defensively.

Yaz laughed out a plume of mist, orange in the streetlights. "Not got one of those arrows for yourself?"

"Doesn't work like that, I'm afraid."

"Never does, does it?"

Yaz was looking at her in a way the Doctor recognised well and she called it, then. It was time to make her escape. Shadowing Yaz was one thing and drinking with her was another. She didn't want to give her any ideas about taking it further than that when the repercussions might already be dire. Plus, she still couldn't quite wrap her head around the fact that this was the same girl she'd fancied herself guardian angel to. It hardly seemed like the same person.

"I really oughta get going," the Doctor announced, stubbing her cigarette out in the ash bin on the wall. "Said I were only gonna stay for one drink."

"I really can't tempt you to stay? We're gonna hit up another bar in a minute," said Yaz, detaching from the wall.

"Wish I could." Which was true. She wanted to stay - wanted to keep getting to know the woman Yaz had become - but she spelled danger. She spelled uncertainty. It must have been said uncertainty causing that uncomfortable knot in her stomach, she told herself. What else could it have been? "Early mornin'. Y'know how it is."

"Tomorrow's Saturday."

"People don't fall in love on Saturdays?" countered the Doctor.

Yaz looked at the Doctor as though _she_ were the enigma. When the Doctor didn't so much as crack a smile to indicate that she'd been joking, Yaz shook her head. "You really are an odd one, aren't you?"

"Is that a bad thing?"

"'Course not. You're probably one of the only interesting people this side of Yorkshire," claimed Yaz. "Only one I've met in a while, anyway."

That knot tightened. "Right back at you, Yasmin Khan." The words were out of her mouth before she could think too much about them. Certainly, before she could stop them. 

Yaz frowned. "Yasmin Khan? How'd you know my full name?"

_Shit._

"Oh, uh, I think I heard one of your colleagues using it before," the Doctor lied, hoping it sounded plausible. The police referred to one another by their last names all the time at work, didn't they? No reason that shouldn't rub off on their social interactions.

"Hm." Yaz shrugged and the Doctor just about contained her sigh of relief. "You'll be off, then?"

"I'll be off.”

She hadn't yet divined any of the answers she so sought to her multitudinous questions but, if anything, the Doctor was at least glad to see how far Yaz had come and that she was doing well out there in the world. Flourishing. The Doctor was proud of her.

"Before you go—” Yaz pulled a pen from her inside pocket and took the Doctor's hand. The Doctor's fingers were permanently calloused but Yaz's were about the smoothest things she'd felt in a while. She scrawled a series of digits onto the back of the Doctor's hand. When she'd finished, she perhaps held onto the Doctor's hand for a few seconds longer than was necessary. "Call me. Or text me. Whatever. Just don't be a stranger, yeah?"

The Doctor, words caught in her throat, could only nod. She walked her to the door and held it open for her. "Have a good'n, Yaz," she said. 

"Night, Cupid." As Yaz passed by the Doctor, she leaned in and pressed a brief kiss to her cheek - grazing soft lips so lightly against her skin that the Doctor almost didn't register it - and then she walked through the door without another word. The Doctor watched her go until she disappeared in the crowd, unaware of the stars that had taken up residence behind her eyes.

* * *

From the rooftop of her apartment building, the Doctor watched Yaz stumble out of a taxi at gone three in the morning. She had to keep low. The sun wasn't up yet so if Yaz decided to look up, she'd be spotted. 

The Doctor hadn't gone to a club, hadn't hooked up with anyone; hadn't engaged in any of the activities she usually would on Valentine's Day. Her run-in with Yaz had left her confused and distracted and she'd ended up walking the streets of the city alone instead. Never before had she wanted so badly to stretch out her wings and fly just for the sake of flying, but it wasn't worth the risk of being seen. 

She hadn't been intentionally heading towards Yaz's flat — it just kind of happened. Her feet carried her there while her mind had been elsewhere and when she looked up and saw where she was, she sighed.

Oh, to have a home to go to. 

Rather than leave, the Doctor opted instead to wait on the roof for Yaz to get home. In part, this was to ensure she was safe; in part, it was because there was nothing else she actually wanted to do. 

As the cab drove away and Yaz ambled up the path, the Doctor saw a lone figure peel away from the shadows at the side of the adjacent building. The hooded man followed Yaz and the Doctor's hearts leapt. Yaz was a cop, she assured herself. She'd be able to handle this. Except even from a distance, the Doctor could see how inebriated Yaz was as she listed with every step she took. 

The man drew nearer and still Yaz failed to notice him. If the Doctor had been on the fence about getting involved before, the glint of a blade in the moonlight gave her a sure shove to one side. The Doctor appeared between Yaz and her would-be attacker in all the time it took for her to think about doing it.

"The fuck?" The man jumped at the Doctor's sudden materialisation. 

Yaz whirled around, almost stumbling in the process, and noticed both the Doctor and the stranger in the same instant. "Oh, shit."

"Leave," seethed the Doctor, eyes cold. She had her back to Yaz.

"Both of you," growled the man, jabbing his knife at the air. “give me your wallets! And that watch, too."

"All right, mate." Yaz put her hand on the Doctor's arm, a silent urge to back down. "No need for the knife, yeah? Here." She unfastened her watch and the man snatched it out of her hand. 

"You're muggin' a copper, y'bloody imbecile," the Doctor spat, ignoring Yaz's nonverbal warning. 

"Shut _up,_ " Yaz hissed. 

"What?" The mugger's eyes widened and he looked Yaz up and down, as if that might confirm or deny the Doctor's allegation. 

"It's fine, mate — she's having you on," mitigated Yaz. She patted herself down, stumbling into the Doctor's side as she appeared to search for her wallet. "Got it _somewhere,_ " she mumbled under her breath. 

But the Doctor was having none of it.

"We're not giving you anything else. If y'know what's good for you, you'll be on your way." The Doctor took a brazen step forward.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll stop being a hero and hand over your wallets." The mugger took his own step closer so that he and the Doctor were inches apart.

Yaz, cop mode apparently kicking in even with a brain steeped in alcohol, was quick to intervene. She grabbed the Doctor by her upper arm to hold her back. "Let's not be silly — right, Doctor? Just give the man what he wants and we can all go home without anyone getting hurt. Sound good to everyone? If I could just _find_ —"

The Doctor shrugged Yaz off. "My friend's obviously lost her wallet. Unlucky for you, I'm not carryin' one." The Doctor turned out her pockets and shrugged. "Shame. So now you've got a choice, mate. Be on your merry way with that swanky new watch and call it a decent haul, or stab a copper in the middle of the street and throw your whole life away. If I was you, I know which option I'd be going for." 

Once again, Yaz tried to pull the Doctor back, but the sudden movement spooked the mugger and he reflexively brought his knife up to defend himself. The Doctor tracked the course of the blade and time slowed.

Shooting a hand out across Yaz's chest, she shoved her backwards and sidestepped, placing herself squarely in the knife's trajectory. Time resumed its normal pace and the man plunged his knife into the Doctor's gut. Yaz cried out behind her but the Doctor didn't so much as wince. When he yanked it back out, it didn't leave a single mark and there wasn't a drop of blood to speak of. The mugger paled.

Smiling darkly, the Doctor took the opportunity to grab his wrist and bend it sharply backwards. He cried out in pain and the knife clattered to the ground. "Run," she spat.

And he did. 

The moment the Doctor loosened her grasp, he bolted around the corner, and the Doctor only regretted that she hadn't asked for Yaz's watch back. It had been a nice watch. As she turned to face Yaz, she smoothed down her t-shirt and the tear in the fabric mended itself beneath her touch. 

"Oh my _god_ — are you okay?" Yaz surged forwards, hands flying up to the Doctor's abdomen. She frowned, lifting the Doctor's leather jacket and searching her for any evidence of harm. "Wha — but he _stabbed_ you. I was sure—"

"Nah. Fiendishly poor aim, that lad," denied the Doctor, prising Yaz's fingers from her shirt just as she was in the process of lifting it.

"No, I _heard_ —"

"Think I'd know if I'd been stabbed, right?" The Doctor tried for a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, Yaz. Cross my hearts."

Yaz took a step back, still looking particularly pale and not as sobered by the encounter as the Doctor might have anticipated. "What are you even doing here?" she said, words slurring. "Were you — did you follow me?"

"I'm stayin’ in the hotel at the end of the street," explained the Doctor, quick on her feet. "I were just walking by when I spotted you."

"What hotel?" Yaz asked, eyes narrow. Still sober enough to retain her well-trained suspicion, apparently.

"The premier." Fortunately, the Doctor knew the streets of Sheffield better than anyone. "Y'know, the grotty one with half the letters unlit? It's dead near."

"Yeah? Where's your keycard?"

"Y'really are a copper, aren't you?" joked the Doctor. She reached into one of her pockets and pulled a keycard out of thin air. When she presented it to Yaz between two fingers, her suspicions began to visibly dissipate. 

Yaz’s rigid shoulders slackened some. "Shit. _Oh_ , I'm gonna have to call this in," she groused, dragging a tired hand down her face. 

"Personally, I think what y'need is a warm bed," reckoned the Doctor. The last thing she needed was to be getting the third degree from an actual, on-duty cop about her address and her ID and all that other nonsense so pertinent to the human way of life. 

"We just got _mugged._ "

"Average night in Sheffield, for ya." 

"You're taking this really bloody well," remarked Yaz, though it looked to the Doctor like she didn't know whether to be impressed or wary. "For future reference, though, if someone's holding you at knifepoint it's probably not a great idea to square up to them. Definitely not a good idea to drop the c-word."

The Doctor paused. "Pretty sure I didn't call him a cu—”

" _Cop._ " Yaz shook her head incredulously at the Doctor and sighed. "Tends to freak people out; escalate things. Y'really could've gotten yourself hurt just now." She eyed her stomach again, still searching for a wound that didn't exist.

"If givin' me a lecture's your way of thankin’ me, then you're very welcome," quipped the Doctor.

"Sorry, sorry — you're right. Thank you," she said sincerely. "I didn't even realise there were anyone behind me. You've got impressive reflexes, I'll grant you that."

The Doctor gave a humble wave of her hand. "It's all the karate I do."

"Right. So you're an angel _and_ a ninja? Anythin' you can't do?" wondered Yaz, her tension beginning to wane. 

"Not s'great at juggling," revealed the Doctor, face screwed up into an expression of genuine dismay. "I'm up to three knives at a time now but the aim's five. Nowhere near bein' able to set 'em on fire, though. One day, I s'pose. If I persevere."

Yaz laughed. "Love to see that," she said. Then, after a lull, "I really should call this in."

The Doctor glanced over her shoulder. She hadn't wanted it to come to this but Yaz really wasn't leaving her with very much choice. She curled a loose hand around Yaz's neck and allowed her fingertips to rest on the nape of it. 

"Um." Yaz stiffened, glancing uncomfortably at the Doctor's outstretched arm. 

"You need rest," said the Doctor. Her fingertips glowed and for a moment, she was taken back to their first encounter so many years ago. The Doctor held Yaz's eyes so that she wouldn't notice her own veins luminescing in the dark. "We had a bit of a spook, yeah, but nobody got hurt. And besides, you're absolutely sloshed, Yaz. Y'need to get to bed."

Yaz relaxed beneath the Doctor's touch. The power of suggestion was an important skill in the engineering of romance, but it also came in handy in other matters every now and again. “Yeah,” agreed Yaz, “you’re right. Maybe I’m overreacting.” 

With an agreeable smile, the Doctor dropped her hand. “Brill.” 

Yaz glanced down the street in the direction the mugger had bolted and pursed her lips. “He could still be out there, though,” she fretted. “I don’t really feel comfortable letting you walk back to your hotel alone.” 

“Ah, don’t worry about me, Yaz!” the Doctor grinned. “I’m a pro at self defence.” 

“Clearly,” muttered Yaz, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. “Can’t I call you a taxi? I’d invite you in, but my family—”

“No need. It’s only around the corner, remember?” When Yaz still didn’t look convinced, the Doctor devised a compromise. “How about I shoot you a text when I get in? I have your number, see?” She held up her hand, baring the digits Yaz had scrawled onto her skin. Reaching into her back pocket and pulling out a phone she usually only reserved for the Cupids’ Whatsapp group chat — or to text Bill when their schedules were too hectic to allow for a face to face rendezvous — she entered Yaz’s number and sent her a text. 

When Yaz’s phone buzzed, she pulled it out and swiped up to read the Doctor’s message. She breathed a laugh. “The eggplant emoji?”

“Yeah! My mate told me it’s shorthand for ‘nice to meet you’.”

“Your mate’s havin’ you on, Doctor,” laughed Yaz. “Here, I’ll tell you what it means.” She typed out a reply to the Doctor’s text and hit send.

When the Doctor read Yaz’s message, her eyes went wide. “Oh, I’m gonna _kill_ Bill.” 

Yaz slipped her phone into her pocket and her smile slowly faded. “Right, well — I’ll be waiting for that ‘home safe’ text, yeah?”

“Then I shan’t keep you waitin’ long, officer,” promised the Doctor. There was a brief moment of dithering awkwardness in which neither woman seemed to know whether they should shake hands or hug or say something else. Eventually, the Doctor decided to offer a feeble wave of her hand. “See ya then, Yaz.”

“Thanks again, Doctor.”

“Anytime.” 

* * *

Six months had passed.

It was a hot August day, and the Doctor was flying. 

Flying — towards the distant thrum of a distinctive pulse; a rhythm that only ever meant one thing. Soul mates. 

Soul mates were rare. Typically, a person’s love lines could be interchangeable with others on their pulse and it was down to a Cupid to make the right call. To pluck the right string. Soul mates, on the other hand, were only ever destined for one person. They required a special arrow, too: diamond tipped head, charcoal coloured shaft; feather fletching the colour of dark blood. 

The Doctor phased through the wall of a moving train. The car was empty but for two young men. They were sharing earphones and gazing out of the window. The one in the aisle seat pointed out certain things as they passed by the window and chatted quietly to his counterpart, whose head rested on his shoulder. The Doctor lived for moments like these. 

Quiet. No melodramatics, no screaming confessions, no nonsense. Just two people in a seemingly unremarkable moment — love blooming unseen. 

Nocking her arrow, the Doctor pulled back the bowstring and let it ghost against her face. With a soft exhale, she released her grip. Halfway through the air, the arrow split down the middle; became two. The diamond arrowheads pierced both their chests simultaneously and the gems lodged into their hearts, where they would remain for a lifetime. Their pulses sang in perfect harmony. The man closest to the window looked up at his boyfriend, smiled, pressed a kiss to his nose.

The Doctor smiled sadly

With a moment to spare, she flew up to the roof of the train car and sat with her knees pulled up to her chest. As the train sped through rolling hills and green pastures, she let her eyes flutter closed and stretched out her wings. 

Every irised feather caught the sunlight; doused her wings in glistening honey. The wind combed through her short blonde hair and whipped at her cheeks and she sighed — soothed. If only she could ride this train to the end of the line or, better yet, to the other side of the world. Run. Hide among the masses. Become but another faceless member of the crowd. Maybe, if she was really lucky, she could do it with a hand to hold. 

Her phone buzzed. 

When she pulled it out, she saw that it was from Yaz and smiled. She had a habit of doing that — of smiling at the mere thought of her. They’d kept in constant contact since Valentine’s Day, after which the Doctor had texted Yaz despite both her better judgement and the warning she’d been given. But Missy had said to stay away and, technically, she was obeying. This was the 21st century, after all. A relationship confined to mobile phones was not so uncommon. 

**Yaz!!!:** _how’s the angel business? still keeping you out of sheffield?_

 **Doctor:** _Booming, as a matter of fact!!_

 **Doctor:** _Soul mates, Yaz!!!_

 **Doctor:** _On the train en route to Liverpool as we speak :-)_

 **Doctor:** _How’s work?? Catch any bad guys today?_

She sent a series of emojis — a water pistol, the policewoman, the detective, several laughing monkeys, and the eggplant. 

**Doctor:** _Whoops!! Ignore the eggplant, please, Yaz!!!_

The Doctor had been forced to come up with a valid reason as to why the two of them could never meet up; why their relationship had to be limited strictly to texting. She told Yaz she was always travelling for work and, while that was technically true and Yaz seemed willing enough to believe her, the Doctor still regretted that she couldn’t ever speak to her in person. 

She’d never experienced the totally alien sensation of missing someone until she’d gotten involved in Yaz’s family — albeit unknown to Yaz. It was a feeling she’d grown to resent. Over the past few months, that feeling had started to swell like a cancerous mass. 

**Yaz!!!:** _same old, really. my birthday’s coming up soon. you out of town next week?_

Wings wilting, the Doctor sighed. She knew Yaz’s birthday was coming up; had been hoping not to get an invite, even though the Doctor would have loved for nothing more than to be able to show up. They’d been talking almost every day for half a year now. It was odd, to maintain such persistent communication with someone — never mind a human who couldn’t even see her when she was standing right in front of her — but she’d come to consider Yaz an actual friend. It upset her that she couldn’t give more of herself; be better to her.

**Doctor:** _Working :-( I’ll send you a present though!!_

 **Yaz!!!:** _you don’t have to do that. I just wish you were here._

 **Yaz!!!:** _mad that we only met that one time. feels like we’ve known each other for ages_

If only she knew.

**Doctor:** _I’ll be back one day. Pinky promise!!!_

 **Doctor:** _There’s no pinky promise emoji :-(_

The Doctor watched the typing bubble appear, then disappear, then appear again. She stared at the bubble until the next text came through.

**Yaz!!!:** _soon?_

Biting her lip, the Doctor tried to think of a response with her thumbs hovering over the screen. Before she got the chance — a distant pulse, calling her home. Her shoulders slumped. She pocketed the phone, got to her feet, and took flight. 

* * *

Anxious, the Doctor paced the Khans’ kitchen. 

The Doctor knew Yaz got off work at three; knew the drive home took approximately fourteen minutes if the traffic was good to her. She knew this because she’d developed a habit of counting the minutes between Yaz’s messages. When she told her she was just leaving work, the countdown began, and when she told her she was home, it ended. Then they could talk, and Yaz could tell her about her day, and the Doctor could ask questions and think about Yaz and her normal life while she shot invisible arrows through unsuspecting hearts. 

So, yes, the Doctor knew the length of her journey by heart. They were an agonising fourteen minutes at the best of times. But now, Yaz was running two minutes late and the Doctor was running out of time.

It was Yaz’s birthday. The Doctor had left a present on the kitchen counter, neatly wrapped in paper the same dark blue hue as her bow, beside a handwritten card. She wanted to be there when Yaz got home and opened it, but if she didn’t hurry up—

She heard the turn of a key in the lock and spun around. 

When the door opened and Yaz stepped in, donned still in her work slacks but with a hoodie pulled on over the top, the Doctor’s chest flooded with warmth and she beamed. After hanging her duffel bag up on a hook by the door, Yaz approached the kitchen, yawning into her fist. She’d been up since five, the Doctor knew; had pulled an earlier shift so that she didn’t have to spend her whole birthday working. 

Yaz stopped short when she spotted the present. With a frown, she crossed the room towards it. The Doctor watched her read the card with bated breath. Only when Yaz’s face softened did the Doctor exhale. Corners of her mouth lifting, Yaz set the card down and unwrapped the present. 

The Doctor found herself watching Yaz’s fingers — which was odd. She never usually noticed a person’s hands. Never paid much mind, either, to how an old, grey hoodie could look so good on some people or how an errant curl tumbling from a loose pony could frame a person’s face so well. She was overcome with the inexplicable urge to tuck it behind her ear. That was certainly new. Lots of things were new around Yaz. 

Lifting the lid from the box, Yaz reached inside and pulled out that which the Doctor had been so nervous for her to receive. It was a hand carved Cupid — cherubic in nature, as was the caricature favoured by humanity — which the Doctor had made herself from black walnut. Running her fingers (god, those fingers) along the smooth edges of the wood, Yaz’s face was a picture of surprise. The Doctor couldn’t make out whether it was the good kind or the bad, until her face broke out into the most brilliant, contagious smile. Infected, the Doctor grinned. 

When Sonya emerged from the hallway and sauntered into the kitchen, the Doctor took a double take. Just like her sister, she’d grown up fast. Sonya started towards the fridge and glanced at the figurine in Yaz’s hands with mild interest.

“That from your weird, long distance girlfriend?” she asked.

The Doctor blinked. Girlfriend? 

“Not my girlfriend,” sighed Yaz. “Just a mate.” 

“A mate you met a grand total of one time and who won’t even tell you what they do for a living?” Sonya took a swig of orange juice straight from the carton and eyed Yaz over the rim.

“She’s eccentric.”

“She’s dodgy.”

Crestfallen, the Doctor shrank back. Just like Yaz, she had watched over Sonya when she was young. Just like Yaz, she’d spared Sonya a feather or two from her own wings whenever she’d needed a little relief from whatever was weighing heavy on her heart. She’d always liked Sonya. Still, her suspicions were understandable. The Doctor hadn’t done much in the way of inspiring trust. 

Yaz set the figurine down with a sigh. “Son.”

“Look, just be careful, is all I’m saying,” said Sonya, returning the orange juice to the fridge. “You really don’t know anything about her. She doesn’t have social media, doesn’t call, doesn’t visit. That’s normal behaviour to you?”

“She travels a lot,” muttered Yaz, “for work.” 

Sonya folded her arms. “Which explains one of three things.” When she spoke next, she did so in a far gentler tone. “Yaz, come on. We both know you’ve been hurt before, and—”

“That’s _enough_ ,” Yaz snapped, levelling her sister with a blustery glare the likes of which the Doctor had never before seen her sport. 

Bemused, the Doctor looked between them. They were communicating in that way only sisters could — with hard stares and crossed arms and a shared history the Doctor was not privy to. Not anymore. But, Yaz? Hurt? Who alive would dream of harming a single hair on her head? There were none so good, or kind, or patient. None at all. She hadn’t spoken much about her past relationships beyond acknowledging that she had indeed been in one and, though the Doctor was curious, she never pried. 

But now curiosity had become unease; might this have something to do with her lack of pulse? Always more questions, where Yaz was concerned. Never any answers.

“Fine,” Sonya eventually yielded, “but if you end up getting murdered, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

When her sister left the room, Yaz gripped the lip of the counter with white knuckles and clenched her jaw. The Doctor watched the muscles in her face tense and wondered what was at the epicentre of the raging storm in her heart — or, rather, _who_. She was on the verge of plucking Yaz a feather when she saw her take out her phone and type out a message. Her own phone buzzed when she hit send. 

Impossibly, Yaz reacted to the sound as if she’d heard it, too. 

She started, glancing about the kitchen with her brows knitted, and the Doctor rocked back. There was no way she heard that. An earthly object it might have been — but while in a Cupid’s possession, it existed in their plane. Why, then, was Yaz looking around the room like that? Why was it that she walked right up to the Doctor, stared straight through her; cocked her head to listen? The Doctor didn’t even dare to breathe. Not until Yaz eventually shook her head dismissively and walked away.

Swallowing tightly, and definitely still reeling, the Doctor checked her messages.

**Yaz!!!:** _thanks for the gift - it’s gorgeous. call me later?_

* * *

Yaz shouldn’t have been able to hear that text. 

Of course, the Doctor wasn’t a hundred percent certain that’s what had happened, but it seemed the only plausible way to explain Yaz’s reaction. So, after a particularly unpleasant unrequited love gig, the Doctor decided to try something she never had before. Sitting on a park bench in the late afternoon sun, she dialled Yaz’s number.

After three rings, she picked up. “ _Doctor_?”

The Doctor took a deep, unsteady breath. “Yaz? Can you hear me?”

“ _What did you — god, where are you? Getting some serious feedback_.”

Hearts racing, the Doctor sprang to her feet. Looking around, she stretched out her wings and shot to the top branch of a nearby tree. “Is this any better?”

“ _Doctor, I — I can hardly hear your voice_ ,” said Yaz. But hardly didn’t mean not at all. “ _You’re breaking up_.” 

In a last ditch effort, the Doctor took off from the tree, leaving the branch swaying vigorously in her wake, and rivalled the speed of light when she flew across the city towards Yaz’s flat. When she arrived, she phased through Yaz’s bedroom window and found her sitting cross legged on her bed. Her hair was wet like she’d just had a shower, and she was twirling the drawstring of her joggers between her fingers. 

“How about now?” asked the Doctor.

Yaz’s frown eased up. “Yeah, actually. That’s a lot better.”

The Doctor couldn’t help but breathe an astonished laugh. Humans weren’t supposed to be able to pick up on the frequency of a Cupid’s voice, whether they were assisted by the use of a man made communications device or not. It was meant to be impossible. 

But then, figured the Doctor, so was having no pulse. 

“Can’t believe we’ve never done this, before,” remarked Yaz. “I mean, we’ve been texting for ages but we’ve never even called.” 

“Hectic life, me,” said the Doctor; a positively elated grin plastered onto her face. “Never usually slow down long enough. But, since it’s your birthday…”

“Yeah, thanks for the cupid, by the way. Did you seriously make it yourself?”

“‘Course I did. Since I couldn’t be there in person, I wanted to make sure y’knew I were there in spirit.” The Doctor sat down on the bed opposite Yaz. If she ignored the phone pressed to her ear and the way Yaz looked right past her, she could almost imagine they were having a regular, face to face conversation. 

Yaz bit her lip around a smile. “Must have taken ages.”

It had. The Doctor’s downtime was limited, but she’d wanted to give Yaz something thoughtful, and so whenever she got a spare minute she would work on it some more. It had taken several attempts — wood carving wasn’t a skill she’d utilised since the middle ages — but she’d been dogged in her perseverance. “Nah,” she said, “not as long as you’d think.”

Yaz sat back against the headboard. “What are you doing right now?”

“I’m doin’ one of my favourite things in the world, Yasmin Khan. I’m talkin’ to you,” enthused the Doctor. When Yaz laughed, something foreign happened within the confines of her rib cage that she chose not to acknowledge. “I’m on a break, so I probably don’t have long.”

“Yeah, I’ll be heading out, soon. I think Ryan’s thrown me a surprise party but he’s shocking at keeping secrets. Shame you couldn’t be here for it.” Yaz paused, switching the phone to her other ear. “Y’know, one of these days, you’re gonna have to tell me what it is that you actually do.”

“I’ve never lied to you,” insisted the Doctor, and it was true. She never had. Even when she had to twist the truth just a little bit, or neglect to mention certain details, she always made every effort to be honest with Yaz.

Still, even as she watched, Yaz rolled her eyes. Her doubt was palpable. “Show me your wings and I might believe that.”

“Maybe one day I will.”

“You’d have to be here in person for that.” 

“Like I said, one day.” The Doctor tilted her head and studied the suddenly sombre infliction behind Yaz’s downturned eyes. “Are you sad? Nobody should be sad on their birthday. ‘Specially not Yaz.”

Yaz gazed out of the window. “What makes you think I’m sad?”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know. I just—” Yaz sighed— “Y’know, my sister thinks you’re a murderer.” 

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully. “Well, you’re the one with the blue blood runnin’ through your veins. What do you think, PC Khan?”

Though she had no idea the Doctor could see her, Yaz gave a half shrug. “Dunno. Can’t put my finger on you, to be honest,” she confessed. “I’ve half a mind to think she’s right, though. Fake name. Fake job. No online presence. You’ve gotta admit, mate, it doesn’t look good.” 

“Would it… would it make you feel better if we stopped?” the Doctor dared to ask, silently praying that this wasn’t where the conversation was headed. “If I left you alone?”

Yaz stared right through the Doctor’s body and, for a brief second, the Doctor suspended all logic to debate whether she might be able to hear her distressed hearts slamming up against her ribs while she awaited an answer.

“No,” Yaz eventually said, easing her jolted nerves some. “I just wish maybe you’d tell me something real once in a while.”

The Doctor considered this. “Can I tell you how glad I am that we met?”

“I’m glad we met, too.”

There was a long pause. They both sat for a moment and listened to one another breathe and the Doctor realised that she was sad, too. 

“I wish you could see me,” croaked the Doctor rashly, because it really did hurt to care for someone as much as she cared for Yaz and be unable to do so much as meet her eye, embrace her, smile right at her; prove to her how much she mattered to her achingly lonely hearts. 

“What are you looking at right now?” Yaz asked.

And the Doctor smiled. “The greatest view in the world,” she said. “Y’wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

With a soft laugh, Yaz glanced at the cupid figurine on her nightstand. She picked it up and prodded at the arrowhead with her thumb. “Guess mine’s a close second.” And then— “Ow!” Yaz dropped the statue onto her duvet. A pinprick of blood pooled over the pad of her thumb where the arrow had pierced her skin. Wincing, she sucked the wound clean. “Think I’ve just been shot by one of your arrows, mate.” 

The Doctor stared at her thumb. “If only,” she murmured — because she was lost in her own head, and because she’d half forgotten that Yaz could even hear her. When Yaz froze, the Doctor blinked back to her body and realised what she’d just said. 

“What did you—”

“Uh, sorry to cut this short,” interrupted the Doctor, scrambling off the bed, “but I — I’ve gotta fly.” 

Yaz gave a resigned nod of her head. “Right. Just not too far, yeah?”

The Doctor halted at the window, watching Yaz with her lips pressed together. “Happy Birthday, Yaz. Really.” When she hung up, she stayed only long enough to watch Yaz heave a dejected sigh and throw her phone on the bed, before unfolding her wings and taking off. 

* * *

Occasionally, Yaz would ask if they could play the same film while they were on the phone together, and the Doctor would sit beside her for as long as the universe allowed and watch it with her. Yaz didn’t seem to mind her running commentary or multitudinous questions. The Doctor didn’t mind that, now and again, Yaz would fall asleep. Not in the slightest.

At other times, when Yaz was feeling lonely (she’d never confess to it, but the Doctor recognised that look on her face well enough), the Doctor would stay on the phone with her all day — traversing the city with her headphones on and Yaz’s voice in her ear. 

That was another thing; the more they talked, the wider the scope for their reception became. It got to the point where the Doctor could be standing on the outskirts of the city and Yaz would still be able to hear her. 

When Yaz had a hard day at work, the Doctor would feed her amusing anecdotes that she never believed but that always made her laugh or cheered her up some. How she loved to make Yaz laugh. 

Always, the Doctor ached to reach out and touch her.

She didn’t understand the urge to squeeze her hand, cup her cheek, wrap her arms around her ribs — but the urge was persistently there. Not that she could surrender to such impulses. Or would. In truth, the Doctor was too afraid that if she did, Yaz might actually feel it. 

* * *

**Doctor:** _Hiya, Yaz!!! Good news!!!_

 **Yaz!!!:** _hey Doctor. what’s up?_

 **Doctor:** _I’m coming back to Sheffield soon! For one night!_

 **Yaz!!!:** _really? when?? that’s amazing!_

 **Doctor:** _Valentine’s Day :-)_

 **Yaz!!!:** _again? that’s the day we met last time, right?_

 **Doctor:** _It’s the one day a year I always have off!_

 **Doctor:** _What can I say? I’m a romantic :-)))_

 **Doctor:** _*pink heart emoji* *yellow heart emoji* *blue heart emoji* *red heart emoji* *frog emoji*_

 **Yaz!!!:** _why the frog?_

 **Doctor:** _I like frogs_

 **Yaz!!!:** _you’re daft_

 **Doctor:** _:-0_

 **Yaz!!!:** _so can I see you when you come down?_

 **Doctor:** _I’d like that very, very much!!!!_

 **Yaz!!!:** _ace! I can’t wait_

 **Yaz!!!:** _don’t forget your wings_

 **Doctor:** _Kind of impossible. They’re attached to my body, Yaz :-/_

 **Yaz!!!:** _does this mean I finally get to see them?_

 **Doctor:** _At least buy a Cupid a drink first_

* * *

When dawn broke on Valentine’s Day, the Doctor greeted the new day from the rooftop of one of the campus buildings in town. The cold sun graced her skin for a fleeting few moments before a storm cloud rolled over its pale face and painted the world grey. The air smelled like rain — like love and hormones and endless, unknowable possibilities. 

A rustle of feathers. A breeze at her side. 

“All right, Bill?” she greeted. 

Bill didn’t waste any time with small talk. “What’s this about you not coming down to London, then?” she demanded, arms crossed over her chest. “Mate, it’s gonna be an absolute rager. Half the Cupids in England are coming. Even that really peng girl — you know, with the eyes? Reckon I have a shot? I know we’re not technically supposed to fraternise amongst ourselves, but…” 

The Doctor laughed, burying her hands in her jacket pockets and turning her back to the view. “I’m positive you’ll find a way around that, as ever, Bill,” she said good-naturedly. “I’m good here. Told you, I’m meetin’ Yaz.” 

“You’re still going through with that? Even after what happened with Missy?” Bill shuddered, not bothering to hide her disdain. “Ugh, she gives me the creeps. Gave me an absolute bollocking once for shooting a guy through the neck. You know what happens when someone ends up with their heart in their throat. She was _not_ happy, mate.” 

“Yeah, but today’s the only day upstairs doesn’t keep tabs,” countered the Doctor, nodding her head towards the turbulent sky, “which means it’s my only chance to figure this out.”

Bill hummed. “Dunno. Wouldn’t put it past ‘em, to be honest.”

“Nah, I’ll be ‘right. We’ve, um — we’ve actually been talking all year. On the phone.”

“You’ve been texting her? God, do not let them catch you doing that.”

“Not just texting,” clarified the Doctor, voice but a clandestine whisper. She glanced furtively over her shoulder, though the odds of there being any eavesdroppers was miniscule. “Bill, she can hear me. I talk and she can _hear_ me.”

“Piss off,” scoffed Bill with a roll of her eyes. 

“No, really. I’ve tried a few things, and — it’s not just down the phone, Bill. Sometimes, I make a sound and she turns as if she heard it.” For now, Yaz still couldn’t hear her voice without the assistance of a phone. She theorised (and that’s all it was — a theory), that this was because she was interacting with an earthly object and that, as such, it was technically of two planes even if it only existed in the one while the Doctor was using it. Plus, the signal was definitely of earth. 

Bill stared at the Doctor, searching her for signs of insincerity. “You’re serious.”

“Deadly.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Haven’t the foggiest, truth be told,” admitted the Doctor, leaning against the parapet and staring at her boots. “No closer to gettin’ any answers now as I was when she were a kid.”

“Blood hell, Doctor,” sighed Bill. “This is a mess.”

“I know.”

“So, why are you still so invested?”

“I — I can’t describe it. When she were younger, it felt protective. Y’know, I just wanted to look after her. Make sure she were all right. That, and I’d never seen anyone without a pulse before. She were an enigma, I s’pose. A puzzle to solve.” 

“And now?”

“Now—” the Doctor swallowed— “I dunno. We click. We just click.”

Bill frowned. “God, you sound like one of _them_.” She perched against the railing beside the Doctor and smirked at her. “She grew up fit, then?”

The Doctor shoved Bill’s shoulder with her own. “Not what I meant.”

“Yeah, but she did, didn’t she?” Bill threw her head back and laughed when the Doctor didn’t deny it. “I can picture it now — haggard maverick detective day drinking on the job and colouring outside the lines. Taking names, kicking arse, seducing—”

“Reckon you’ve been watchin’ too much telly in your downtime, mate,” wagered the Doctor (but if Cupids could blush, she’d be crimson all over).

Bill smiled, relenting. “Yeah, well, if I can’t convince you to stay away then at least be careful, yeah?” she implored, straightening up. “You’re messin’ with stuff you don’t understand. Don’t wanna see you get in deep shit. I don’t wanna see you get hurt, either.”

“Ah, put a lid on the sentimental drivel, Bill — it’s not you.” 

Grinning, Bill held her hands up, palms towards the Doctor. “All right, all right. Well, I’ll see you later then, mate,” she said, hopping over the parapet and leaning back over the edge of the roof with one hand still clinging to the railing. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” With a final wink, Bill released her grip and plummeted backwards off the roof and her laughter faded to nothing. 

The Doctor rolled her eyes fondly.

There wasn’t much in the universe that Bill wouldn’t do. 

* * *

Having arrived half an hour early, the Doctor was left with nothing to do but fret. 

They were meeting at the Sheffield Tap, right beside the train station. Because she couldn’t feel the cold, and because she wanted to be able to see Yaz coming, the Doctor sat at one of the empty tables outside the bar and counted silver cars to keep from indulging her nerves with helpless bouts of overthinking. She was just meeting up with a friend — so why was she so anxious? She put it down to her fear of getting caught defying orders and didn’t question it beyond that.

The Doctor was chewing her thumbnail, leg bouncing, when she spotted Yaz crossing at the traffic lights. The Doctor sprang to her feet so abruptly her knee knocked the table and she almost sent it toppling over. When Yaz reached the sidewalk, their eyes locked. Yaz slowed to a stop a couple of metres away. 

For a few seconds, neither of them did anything. But then Yaz grinned. The Doctor sent one back and, suddenly emboldened, rounded the table towards her. Yaz grunted her surprise when the Doctor threw her arms around her — but surprise soon capitulated to glee, and then the Doctor felt Yaz’s hands at her back. Yaz laughed against her and the reverberations of it nestled through the gaps of her ribs and echoed back and forth between her hearts. The Doctor had been waiting a whole year — longer, even — for this. She could be forgiven for holding Yaz a little tighter than was custom; for clinging to her a little longer than Yaz probably expected. Subtly, she breathed her in and got a whiff of macadamia shampoo and, if she wasn’t mistaken, cologne. 

“Y’smell nice,” said the Doctor as they pulled apart. The moment their bodies separated, the Doctor wanted nothing more than to pull Yaz right back in. They had only tonight, after all, and then she’d be forced to go another year without touching her. 

“Uh, thanks,” Yaz accepted the compliment with an amused frown. “Weren’t sure y’were even gonna show, to be honest.” 

“I told you I’ve never lied to you.” 

Nodding distractedly, Yaz looked the Doctor up and down. “Mate, you look _exactly_ the same.”

“You look great,” the Doctor offered — and she did. A silk, grey button up had been tucked into tailored black slacks and she wore a dark bomber over the ensemble. A pair of white trainers gave the smart look a casual edge. Effortless, almost. “Dapper. I like it.” 

Yaz slipped a hand into her trouser pocket and pulled out a small, gift wrapped parcel. She presented it to the Doctor. “For you.”

The Doctor’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. “You got me a gift?”

“Well, you got me somethin’ for my birthday, and since I’ve known you for a year I can only assume I’ve missed yours,” explained Yaz. “Figured you wouldn’t tell me when it was even if I asked.”

Wide eyed, the Doctor accepted the present. “Nobody’s ever gotten me a present before,” she mumbled.

“ _What_?”

Wasting no time, the Doctor tore off the wrapping paper. Then, lying in her palm, was an odd looking bracelet with a black leather strap and a soft, oblong button on the top. “Oh! It’s a…” the Doctor trailed off. What _was_ it? 

Yaz chuckled. “Here.” She took the bracelet and strapped it on around the Doctor’s wrist. After tightening it, she pulled up the sleeve of her own jacket to reveal an identical bracelet of her own. When she ran her thumb along the button on top, the Doctor’s own button glowed gold and she felt Yaz’s touch along her wrist. Her lips parted. “So you can always feel me — when you’re flying about on your own out there.” 

The Doctor was speechless. “Yaz… I don’t know what to say.” Experimentally, she touched a finger to the button and watched Yaz’s bracelet light up. “This is _brilliant_! Thank you. Really.”

“Yeah?” Yaz asked, somewhat self-conscious. She twisted one of her earrings. “Wasn’t sure if it were a bit much.” 

“Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor breathed happily — and left it at that. What else was there to say?

They looked at one another for a beat. It was charged, but charged with what, the Doctor couldn’t say. Yaz cleared her throat. “Right, let’s get in before we freeze to death,” she proposed, clapping the Doctor on the shoulder. “My shout. What you havin’?”

* * *

After a couple of drinks at the Tap, they had dinner at a nearby restaurant. 

The Doctor asked questions she already knew the answer to just for the sake of hearing Yaz speak. She talked about her family, her job, her friends — and the Doctor listened as intently as if she were hearing all this information for the very first time. Some small part of her felt guilty, of course, like she was an intruder. But that was the nature of her being. Watching. Lurking. Pulling invisible strings behind the scenes. She was ever-present and never noticed.

Whenever Yaz inevitably turned the conversation around to the Doctor, she tried to answer as honestly as she could.

“So, where’ve you been lately?” Yaz would wonder between sips of beer.

To which the Doctor would say, “Eh, around. Here and there. Up and down. Saw some sights. Have you tried this calamari? It’s amazin’.”

Or, over dessert, “How long will you be in Sheffield for?”

“We’ve only got tonight, I’m afraid. Lots of work to do tomorrow.” 

“Work where? In town?”

“Not far.” 

And then, as they stepped into another bar and Yaz shook off her umbrella beside her, “Is this really the first time you’ve been to Sheffield since we first met?”

“I’ve a manic life, me,” the Doctor said by way of avoiding the truth, pushing a strand of wet hair out of her face with the back of her wrist as they made their way over to a booth and settled in opposite one another. 

“That’s not what I asked.” When the Doctor said nothing, Yaz leaned closer with her arms folded atop the table. “Doctor, it’s been really good to see you — and I love talking to you. I know we only talk over the phone but, I dunno, I feel close to you. Like I can tell you anything. And I do, usually. But you don’t. You answer questions without saying anything and you don’t talk about anything personal and it’s _weird_. It’s weird that we’ve been talking for a year and I still don’t know you.” 

The Doctor deflated. She’d figured something like this might happen, and now that Yaz could stare her down and pin her to the seat with those anatomising eyes, it wasn’t so easy to evade her curiosity. “I’m a private person, Yaz,” she said, “I dunno what else to tell you.” 

“That’s not good enough. Not anymore.” Yaz leaned back against the vinyl, gaze unwavering from the Doctor’s. “I’ve ignored red flags in the past, Doctor. It didn’t end well for me. And I wanna believe you’re different. I really, really do. I care about you, and you make me laugh, and you cheer me up like no one else. But how can I trust you, when you clearly don’t trust me?”

“I do trust you,” insisted the Doctor, “more than you know.”

Yaz raised a challenging eyebrow. “When’s your birthday?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I told you.”

“What’s your real name?”

“I don’t have one.” 

“Jesus Christ, Doctor, do you even hear yourself?” Yaz threw her hands up in exasperation. “Y’know, it was funny, to begin with. It was kooky. Now, it just frustrates me. It _concerns_ me. I mean, do you even have any frie—”

“Doc?”

Yaz and the Doctor both turned. Heading towards them, across the bar, was Bill. 

The Doctor rocked back, spreading her hands when Bill reached the table. “Bill, what’re you doin’ here?”

“Thought that was you, mate!” When the Doctor stood, Bill pulled her into a hug as though they were two friends who hadn’t seen one another in a while and whispered, “Sorry, can’t resist a good mystery. Had to see this for myself.” When she pulled away, she looked down at Yaz. “You must be Yaz. The Doctor’s told me a _lot_ about you.” When she winked, the Doctor groaned internally. 

Yaz smiled cordially, choosing not to take the bait. “That’s me. And you are—?”

“Bill. What, y’mean she hasn’t told you about her best mate in the whole world?” Bill pressed a hand to her chest in faux-shock. “I’m offended.”

“I have actually,” grumbled the Doctor. “Nothin’ good, mind.”

Bill ruffled the Doctor’s hair, electing to ignore the daggers she sent her way, and then offered Yaz her hand. The Doctor fell silent; watching. _The moment of truth._ When Yaz clasped her hand in Bill’s and gave her a firm handshake, the Doctor studied Bill’s face for a reaction. Bill’s smile faltered for a millionth of a second, her pupils flitting towards the Doctor. An inscrutable expression passed over her face, there and then gone in a heartbeat. 

Yaz looked between them, reclaiming her hand. “Will you join us for a drink, Bill? I were just sayin’ how I wanted to meet some of the Doctor’s mates.” 

“Oh, absolu—”

“Sorry, excuse us a mo’, Yaz,” apologised the Doctor, grabbing Bill by the sleeve of her denim jacket and tugging her towards the bar. “Bill, help me grab the first round?” When they were safely out of earshot and at the bar, she spun towards Bill with no small measure of intensity scored onto her features. “So? Y’get a pulse?”

Bill’s face was slack with shock. She looked visibly spooked, as if she’d seen a ghost. She paused, glancing over her shoulder at Yaz. “Y’might wanna get a shot in for this, mate,” she advised. 

“Just tell me,” the Doctor snapped, impatience getting the best of her.

“She’s got a pulse, Doctor. She’s got a soulmate, even.”

“ _What_? Why can’t I get a read on her then?”

“Because,” began Bill, levelling the Doctor with scrutinising, mystified eyes, “you _are_ her soulmate.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and they were SOULMATES (oh my goddd they were soulmates)


	3. their enemy, the sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kinda feel like this chap is a bit rushed but i'm not sure if that's bc i'm used to writing the SLOWEST of slow burn idk i hope u enjoy anyway lmao
> 
> oop also peep the rating change lads x

“That doesn’t make any sense — I can’t be her soulmate!”

“I know.”

“Cupid’s don’t even _have_ pulses! We don’t fall in love. It’s impossible!”

“I know.”

“And she’s human! She’s—”

“Doctor, I know!” shouted Bill, sparing an apologetic glance at the surrounding few patrons who turned at her raised voice before resuming in a whisper. “Look, I’m only telling you what I saw. And what I saw was her pulse entwining with you. But it’s — it’s fuzzy, you know? Like I can’t see the whole picture.” 

They each looked over their shoulders at Yaz, who was scrolling through her phone at the booth. Soulmate? No. She couldn’t be. All her life, the Doctor had been told she would never fall in love; that none could ever love her. Eternally doomed to bestow love unto others and never know it for herself — that was her lot. The agony of that knowledge was indescribable.

But now? What did this mean?

Was there a chance? 

“We should leave,” urged Bill. 

“Are you insane? I can’t go now!” hissed the Doctor. She’d shadowed Yaz, on and off, since she was nine years old. From fly on the wall to guardian to friend, the Doctor had always been there for her in some capacity. Had always cared for her. It wasn’t about solving a mystery anymore. If she was being honest with herself, she’d have admitted that a long time ago. The sad truth of it was, she liked Yaz. She made the Doctor feel a little closer to normal; made her forget that, by her very nature, she was unloveable. Even if only for a while. 

So, this revelation didn’t make her want to run. It didn’t make her want to leave Yaz behind for the third time. No, it made her want to stay. 

“Doctor, mate,” sighed Bill, “you were told to stay away from her. Maybe there’s a good reason for that.” 

“I’m her _fate,_ Bill — that’s what you’re saying, right?”

“I — I don’t know! Like you said, it doesn’t make any sense. A human and a Cupid?” Bill shook her head with an incredulous scoff. “You ought to talk to the Lords. They’ll know what to do. They’ll fix this.” 

Except the Doctor wasn’t sure this was something she wanted fixing. Not if fixing meant making it all go away — making _Yaz_ go away. “They lied to me last time. I don’t think I can trust them.” 

“Shh, watch what you’re saying!” Bill’s eyes flitted anxiously about the room. “They could be listening.” 

“If they were, I feel like they’d have intervened already, don’t you?” At least, the Doctor hoped that was the case. There were thousands upon thousands of Cupids to keep track of; maps to monitor and flight paths to record. Even if the Lords did monitor them on Valentine’s Day, she didn’t think there was any way they’d be able to keep an eye on all of them all the time. Not unless they were a lot more powerful than she’d ever given them credit for. 

“This is mad,” said Bill; forever an ace at understatements. She paused and a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “I was right though, wasn’t I? She’s pretty easy on the eyes.” 

The Doctor breathed a laugh. “Bill.”

“Sorry — I really don’t know what to say.”

“Hey, guys?”

The Doctor almost jumped out of her skin. Yaz had appeared right behind them and the Doctor hoped beyond reason that she hadn’t just heard the latter part of their exchange. The way she smiled awkwardly at Bill suggested any and all hopes were in vain. 

“Yaz! Hello! Sorry — we’ll be gettin’ those drinks, now.” The Doctor had completely forgotten they were supposed to have been getting the first round, and had let pretty much everybody in the queue overtake them. 

Yaz gestured towards the door. “I can go, if—”

“Nonsense, stay put! Same as last time, was it?” She turned to Bill. “And you?” 

Bill pursed her lips. “Actually, mate, I’m gonna skedaddle. I’ve got a, uh, prior engagement.” She looked to the Doctor with a silent plea in her eyes, imploring her to follow suit. The following shake of the Doctor’s head was imperceptible enough that only Bill would notice. She sighed under her breath. “Right. Well, I’ll be in touch soon.”

“Yes, excellent. Soon.”

“Nice to meet you, Yaz,” Bill said, obviously surprising Yaz by pulling her in for a hug. She had never been one for the British sensibility of wide berths and cool indifference. “Be careful around this one, yeah?” she teased when they pulled apart, clapping the Doctor on the back. “She’s a sloppy drunk.” 

The Doctor scowled. “Am not.”

With a puckish chuckle, Bill bid a final goodbye to the two of them and then left. Part of the Doctor had been hoping she’d stay, because what she supposed to do now? Here, in a bar — with her _soulmate._ The word was rattling back and forth in her mind like a marble in a tin can. She spent so long turning it over that it almost began to lose all meaning. Almost.

“That were a flying visit,” Yaz remarked, watching the bar door swing close behind Bill. “How’d you know her, again?”

“Um, we work together.” 

“You mean there are other Cupids flying around out there?”

“Loads of us! I told you! Y’didn’t really think it were just little old me out there taking care of all those billions of hearts, did you? Be realistic, Yaz.”

Yaz looked at her like this was a joke she didn’t find funny anymore and the Doctor’s smile fell. “Doctor—”

“Fancy a walk?” interrupted the Doctor. “While the rain’s cleared up?” 

Yaz shrugged a shoulder. “I guess.” 

* * *

Their walk led them along the train tracks. The Doctor had been right — the rain had cleared up. Still, it was windy and overcast and in all likelihood it wouldn’t be long before the city was graced with another torrential shower. The Doctor stared at her boots as they walked, only half paying attention to their conversation amidst the million questions Bill’s revelation had left her head spinning with. 

Before long, Yaz was slowing to a stop beside her. She tugged at the sleeve of the Doctor’s jacket to stymie her. “Doctor, honestly, I can’t go on like this.” 

“Oh,” frowned the Doctor. “Well, we can head back to the bar now, if your feet are gettin’ tired.” 

“No, I mean — this. _You_ ,” clarified Yaz. “I thought I didn’t mind that you were so cagey and elusive; kinda thought it were just part of your charm. But I’m a copper, Doctor. I know the warning signs when I see them. And with you — Christ, you’re lit up like a bloody Christmas tree with ‘em. I don’t _know_ you. At all.” 

Wind whipped a lock of the Doctor’s hair into her face and she tucked it behind her ear. “I tell you as much as I can, Yaz,” she said helplessly. 

“I don’t think you do. It’s like pulling teeth even tryna get you to say how you feel — and I can never bloody read you!” Frustrated, Yaz took a step closer and searched the Doctor’s face for clues. “How are you feeling right now? Does what I’m saying even matter to you?”

“Yes, it matters.” Across the bridge in the distance, a train thundered towards them. The Doctor tugged Yaz off the tracks by her hand and then didn’t let go. She gave it a squeeze. “You matter to me, Yaz.” 

Yaz’s eyes fell over their joined hands — an inscrutable expression on her face. “Not sure I believe that, either, Doctor,” she mumbled, and pulled her hand free. The Doctor tried not to show how dearly she mourned the loss of contact. “Which is fine, I s’pose. We’ve only met a couple of times. All year, you’ve been nothing but a voice on the phone, so I get it.”

“What do you get?” wondered the Doctor as the train charged ever closer and grew ever louder. “Is that really what you think? That you don’t mean anything to me? You might’ve only been a voice, Yaz — but it’s a brilliant bloody voice. My favourite, in fact. Have I told you that?”

“Give over, Doctor,” said Yaz, the volume of her voice rising to contend with the train. Just as it reached them, she said, “There are probably a thousand other people you’d rather be—”

The Doctor kissed Yaz. 

She tried not to. Really. The Doctor wasn’t in the habit of kissing people to shut them up; but that isn’t what this was. Yaz thought the Doctor didn’t care about her, and such a despicable notion was this that the Doctor couldn’t _not_ act. Couldn’t not kiss Yaz’s soft, full lips and swallow up whatever self-deprecating suppositions she’d been on the cusp of voicing. 

Deafened by the roar of the train stampeding past, with an icy wind billowing her hair into her face and threatening to sweep the two of them up and carry them along the tracks, she cupped Yaz’s face and she kissed her — only to draw sharply away when she felt Yaz freeze up against her. Yaz looked stunned; lips still parted in the shape of the words the Doctor hadn’t allowed her to say. 

“I’m — I’m so sorry,” she blurted, pupils flitting rapidly between Yaz’s wide eyes. “God, I’m sorry, Yaz, I — _mph_.”

Dragging her back in by the lapels of her jacket, Yaz stole an encore from the Doctor’s willing lips. Following a graceless collision and a brief spell of shock, the Doctor’s rigid muscles relaxed and then, at last, they both found themselves on the same page (blank — save for five words: _I’ve been waiting for this_ ). Yaz kept her hands fisted in the Doctor’s jacket and the Doctor let hers drift upwards to cradle Yaz’s face with a kind of delicacy she’d never been predisposed to before. 

Yes, Yaz had been raising valid concerns. Sure, they were going to crop up again. But in that moment, as they kissed themselves dizzy beside the train tracks, everything else melted away or else boarded the train to some distant destination. 

The Doctor had kissed people before. Lots of them. Countless lips she couldn’t place a face to; tongues that had never known the taste of her name. Never before had it felt like this. Like something she actually wanted to do. Like a shock wire to her hearts, a lethal jolt of electricity; a bolt of lightning through the chest.

Like she’d just been impaled by an arrow.

* * *

The Doctor was still reeling from their kiss over an hour later, at which point the two of them were playing pool in a bar they’d initially only ducked into to escape the rain. She’d never understood why humans liked kissing so much. She’d always found it a little grim; a little obscene. Mouths mashed together, tongues slipping and sliding over one another, teeth occasionally knocking. All the previous lips to ever grace her own had always felt cold and uninviting. 

Not Yaz’s. 

Yaz’s lips felt like coming home. For someone who’d never before had a home to go to, that was an immense thing for her to admit. And a little overwhelming. Was that what it felt like for everybody else? No wonder they never stopped. It had taken every ounce of strength the Doctor had to pull herself away from Yaz. Or, she should say, to let Yaz pull away from her.

Since the encounter, Yaz had carried on as normal — if a little more smiley than before. The same couldn’t be said for the Doctor. She kept stumbling over her words, forgetting to finish her sentence whenever she plunged inadvertently into the dark depths of Yaz’s eyes, getting flustered whenever Yaz brushed up against her. 

Which was often. 

The pool table was in a narrow, dimly lit corner of the bar, which didn’t help. It also didn’t help that the Doctor was abysmal at pool. Smug, Yaz would occasionally come up from behind to guide her hands, angle her arms, lean right over the table beside her with a hand on her back and speak low next to her ear as she advised the Doctor on her best play. Of course, all of this only served to distract the Doctor further. She began to wonder if it was intentional.

“Don’t think you’ve gotten away with it, by the way,” Yaz said, rolling her shirt sleeves up to her elbows. She’d left her sopping jacket draped over the balustrade to dry. The Doctor stared at her arms. 

“What’s that?” the Doctor mumbled — attention totally divided.

Yaz picked up her cue and rounded the table, carefully selecting the right angle to approach from. “Kissing me ‘cause you didn’t like what I had to say,” she explained, leaning over the table and sparing the Doctor a knowing pop of her brow. “Dick move, Doctor.” 

“Sorry,” the Doctor apologised with a roguish smile, “just couldn’t help myself.” 

“Hm.” Yaz potted a ball and straightened up. “I wanted to kiss you last time, y’know? When we first met. But you were so bloody skittish I had to settle for a peck on the cheek. Then I spent the whole year regretting it.” She picked her beer up off the ledge on the wall and took a sip, and the Doctor found herself envying the lip of the bottle. “Didn’t think I’d ever get another chance.”

“Well, maybe the kiss were better ‘cause we had to wait so long for it,” supposed the Doctor, although even as she said it, she knew that wasn’t the case. It would have felt just as good had they done it months ago. 

“A year’s a long time to wait.”

“Tellin’ me.” 

After Yaz’s last ball narrowly missed the pot, she kissed her teeth and reached past the Doctor for the chalk. “Am I gonna have to wait another year to see you again? Is that how this is gonna work from now on?” she asked. “You’ll pick up the phone but won’t hop on a train ‘til Valentine’s Day?”

Bent over the table, the Doctor grunted her frustration when she finally managed to pot a ball — only for it to be Yaz’s. She turned to find that Yaz was standing right beside her. Waiting. “Can’t we just enjoy today?” implored the Doctor. “Right now? I don’t wanna worry about that.” 

“Neither do I, Doctor,” laughed Yaz, “but I do worry. I like you.” She brushed a lock of the Doctor’s hair behind her ear, fingers ghosting along her silver cuff, and let her hand come to rest on her shoulder. “I really like you.”

“I really like you, too.”

It had taken until today for the Doctor to accept it — but that must have been what this was all along. Attraction. Affection. Intoxication. For an apparent angel of love, it had taken her an awfully long time to come to terms with her feelings. But then, that was because she wasn’t supposed to _have_ any. Not like this. She’d never experienced it firsthand before and, as such, the knot of nerves and the racing pulse and the perpetual warmth in her bones at anything so basic as hearing Yaz’s name had all felt rather impossible to attribute reason or sense to. 

Standing before her now, however, it was an entirely different story. The Doctor rested her cue against the wall and stepped marginally deeper into Yaz’s space. She curled a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head just so, and Yaz — cool, collected Yaz — fell silent. 

“Can I kiss you again?” the Doctor asked in a manner so temperate it surprised even herself. 

Yaz nodded, muted by her nerves for only a moment before clearing her throat and setting free her voice. “Yeah,” she croaked, “you can kiss me.” 

The Doctor’s gaze fell from Yaz’s eyes to her lips. Slowly, she leaned in. Yaz greeted her halfway. This time, when their lips met, it wasn’t so urgent or breathy. It was slow, exploratory; beer-sticky and balmy. And no less exhilarating for it. She might have liked to say that Yaz tasted like strawberry chapstick; like the cherry she’d popped into her mouth from atop her sundae over dinner or like heaven or like sin or like her soulmate. In reality, Yaz just tasted like Yaz — and the Doctor couldn’t get enough.

“Next time,” Yaz said around a vaguely amused smile when they came up for air, “you don’t have to ask.”

“Noted,” said the Doctor, before pressing a featherlight kiss to her forehead. 

* * *

Time had never passed the Doctor by so fast as it did when she was with Yaz.

Yaz beat the Doctor at pool and she beat Yaz at darts. They drank and talked and laughed and danced. The Doctor liked the dancing best. It was an excuse to have Yaz’s body pressed up against her own; an excuse to wrap her arms around her as she moved and nuzzle her nose into her neck. Yaz’s cologne, she discovered, was leagues better than any drug she’d tried in the past. Entirely more affecting. 

The longer the night went on, the drunker they got, and the more intense the tension between them became. Eventually, they both stopped trying to pretend it wasn’t there. The Doctor grabbed Yaz by her wrist and dragged her out of the club, backing her up along the adjacent alleyway until her body hit brick and she was pinned between the Doctor and the building — at the mercy of her touch; her every untameable desire. The muffled boom of music reverberated through the wall and still didn’t rival the beat of the Doctor’s hearts. It was a beat that dropped every time Yaz gasped, grunted, moaned against her mouth or clung ever more desperately to her clothes in a bid to extinguish any and all space between their bodies.

The Doctor couldn’t have said where it was headed when she pressed her knee between Yaz’s thighs. She couldn’t have said, as Yaz slipped a hand beneath the fabric of her shirt and grazed her fingers against her ribs, that they’d have been able to stop themselves from going at it right there in the shadows behind the nightclub. She couldn’t have said, because she didn’t get to find out. 

She didn’t mean for it to happen. Her tongue was at Yaz’s throat and Yaz was groping a little frenziedly and the Doctor was on another plane entirely and then—

They were floating.

Literally. 

The Doctor didn’t even realise until Yaz’s eyes snapped open and, with a startled cry, she pushed away from the Doctor and they both fell to the ground. Yaz stared at the Doctor, breathing heavily, a hybrid of fear and outright bemusement emblazoned onto her face. She scrambled to her feet and twisted around, trying to get a look over her shoulder and search for invisible strings or some other way to explain what had just happened. 

And the Doctor thought, _shit_. That had never happened to her before.

“You — we were just — did you see that?” stammered Yaz. “We were _floating_! Am I high or were we floating?”

Rising to her feet, the Doctor wiped her palms on her jeans. “Yes, Yaz, we were floating.” 

“Wh — why don’t you seem at all shocked by that?”

“I mean, I am a little bit. Never lost control like that around anyone else before,” said the Doctor. “Bit odd.”

“Bit odd?” Yaz parroted, bewildered by the Doctor’s nonchalance. “You just defied the laws of physics. You — how did you do that? Is this some sort of trick? ‘Cause it’s not funny, Doctor. I’m not laughing.”

The Doctor frowned. “Y’know what I am, Yaz. I’ve told you time and time again.”

Yaz rolled her eyes so hard it was virtually audible. “Oh, do me a favour,” she entreated angrily. The encounter seemed to have sobered her some, if the cutting clarity to her eyes was anything to go by. “You’re not actually bloody Cupid!” When the Doctor only looked right back at her with her lips pressed and her eyebrows raised, Yaz’s certainty faltered. “You can’t — that’s insane. It’s like saying you’re Santa. Or the tooth fairy.”

“God, can y’imagine if I’d been assigned tooth fairy duty?” quipped the Doctor. “Now, that would’ve been a grim eternity.”

“Would you just _stop_? Stop making jokes!” shouted Yaz. She pressed a hand to her forehead and exhaled unsteadily. “I can’t — I think I’ve had too much to drink.”

“You’ve had as much as I have.”

Yaz’s hand dropped to her side. Before the Doctor’s eyes, she steeled. “Show me again.”

“Yaz—”

“I said show me. Please,” pleaded Yaz, “if you really expect me to believe you, I need to see it again.”

The Doctor hesitated. This was definitely against every rule in the book, but _hell_ if she didn’t have a hard time saying no to Yaz. Relaxing her body, the Doctor tilted her head back and spread her arms a few inches from her body. Centimetre by centimetre, she began to lift from the ground until it was solid beneath the soles of her boots no more and she was hovering a foot above it. The Doctor crossed her legs beneath herself and looked at Yaz. She didn’t show off; didn’t think now was the right time. 

Yaz was floored — a picture of stupefaction. Blinking through her daze, Yaz crouched in front of the Doctor and swiped a hand beneath her. Then she was patting her down as if she might find a wire and she found it less than amusing when the Doctor asked if she had a warrant to be frisking her like that. Once she’d rounded the Doctor once, twice, three times, the Doctor saw Yaz’s doubts begin to crumble beneath the weight of an impossible, undeniable truth. 

“You were telling the truth,” she trembled, staggering backwards.

The Doctor uncrossed her legs and thudded to the floor. “That’s what I’ve been tryna tell you, Yaz. All this time, if you’d bothered to—” She stopped. Tilted her head. Sniffed. “ _Oh_ , do you smell pizza?”

Though she was aware they were in the middle of quite a crucial exchange, the Doctor was always flooded with an influx of cravings she never typically experienced on Valentine’s Day and she wasn’t much in the habit of denying said cravings when they arose. And right now, as a chilling breeze wafted along the noxious odour of greasy, cheesy pizza, the Doctor realised that she was positively starving. 

Yaz looked at her like she had three heads. _“What?”_

“Pizza,” the Doctor repeated happily, “I can smell it. Can’t you?”

“You’re hungry?”

“Famished! Can we get some food?”

Perplexed, Yaz opened and then closed her mouth. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious.” 

“Deadly,” insisted the Doctor. Right on cue, her stomach began to growl something ghastly. She patted it and shot Yaz a childlike pout. “Please?”

Yaz glanced around at their surroundings as if checking this really was real; that she wasn’t dreaming the most bizarre, vivid dream. Apparently finding the fabric of reality to be intact, she pinched the bridge of her nose with an exasperated sigh. “Oh, fine,” she surrendered. "Come on then, _Cupid_. I know where to get the dirtiest pizza in Sheffield.” 

“Brilliant!”

* * *

Yaz never stopped staring at the Doctor.

They got a pizza from the takeaway, which the Doctor couldn’t contain herself from tucking into as they walked the streets back to Yaz’s flat, and all the way from the club to the complex Yaz never once tore her eyes away from the Doctor. The Doctor was far too engrossed in stringy cheese and chewy dough to pay much mind.

It was a little after four in the morning when they entered the lobby. The Doctor came to an uncertain stop when Yaz made for the lifts.

“Uh, what about your family?” she asked. 

“What? Oh — it’s just me,” said Yaz, calling the lift. “My sister’s crashing at a mate’s and my parents have gone away for the night. Won’t be anyone home ‘til tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh.”

They headed up to Yaz’s flat and the Doctor pretended not to find it all so familiar, waiting for Yaz to guide her to the dinner table to finish her pizza while she brewed them each a coffee. By the time she returned to the table, steaming mugs in hand, the Doctor had already polished off the last of her pizza and sat cleaning her fingers on a napkin. 

“Stuffed,” she announced, brimming with content. “You’re right — that were a proper dirty pizza. Oh, y’didn’t want any, did you?”

“Bit late for that, now.”

“Sorry.”

Yaz scooted her chair closer to the table and rested her elbows on the wood. “So, are you satisfied now? Can we talk about…”

“I’ve been talkin’ about it all year, Yaz.” The Doctor tossed her napkin into the empty pizza box and closed the lid. “Not my fault y’chose not to listen.”

“You didn’t honestly expect me to believe you?” When the Doctor shrugged, Yaz threw her hands up. “Doctor, that’s not the kind of thing someone’s just gonna take you at your word for. Not without proof.” 

“That’s just it, though,” began the Doctor, “I couldn’t prove it to you.” 

“Why not?”

“Because you couldn’t see me.”

Struggling to understand, Yaz’s brows slanted inward. “What do you mean, I couldn’t see you? You were never here.”

The Doctor sat back, raking a hand through her hair and considering just how much to reveal to Yaz. It would be best, she figured, not to let on exactly how long she’d been watching over her. Best, too, not to drop the soulmate bomb. There was a good reason humans couldn’t see their own pulses — their own fates. If they knew their hearts fell under the category of predetermined destiny, they were liable to freak out. It may only have alienated Yaz further. That was the last thing the Doctor wanted. 

“Yaz, there’s somethin’ I have to tell you, and you’re not gonna like it.” The Doctor leaned in and wrapped both hands around her mug. Her shoulders heaved with a heavy sigh. “Cupids — we don’t usually exist in your realm. Not in the way you do. We can’t be seen by mortals, touched by them; heard by them. Three hundred and sixty four days a year, every day except Valentine’s Day, we belong to the shadows.”

“You mean…” Yaz trailed off, trying to process. The Doctor gave her all the patience the situation required. “So, you’re basically invisible?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Yaz dragged a hand down her face and groaned. “God, this is so not how I thought this night were gonna go,” she lamented. And then paused. “Wait, but I’ve been talking to you on the phone for months. How d’you explain that?”

“I can’t,” admitted the Doctor with a clueless shake of her head. “You’re the only human I’ve ever met who can hear me.”

“The only — _why?_ Why me?”

The Doctor stared at her for a long time before she answered. “Lot’s of things don’t make sense to me lately, Yaz.” What she didn’t say — but what she almost did — was, _and it all started when I found you_. That wasn’t fair to her. None of this was Yaz’s fault; of that she was certain. She didn’t see any sense in placing the burden of her unravelling identity on her. 

Yaz’s fingers drummed against the tabletop. The Doctor could only imagine the untold questions percolating in the back of her mind, each fighting the other for purchase on the tip of her tongue. The one she settled on was, “Have you been here before?”

“Oh, uh—” the Doctor winced bashfully— “sometimes when we’re on the phone, I — sorry. That’s weird, right?”

“This whole thing’s weird.” Yaz stared into her coffee. The Doctor imagined that, if she strained, she’d be able to hear cogs turning, grinding, squealing. “This whole time, you really never did lie to me. Guess I kind of owe you an apology.” 

The Doctor dismissed the notion with a flair of her hand. “Nah, mortals have a hard time with this stuff. I coulda tried harder. I should have.”

Nodding absently, Yaz’s glazed eyes snapped into focus and she glanced at the clock on the wall. “Valentine’s Day’s over now, though. I can still see you,” said Yaz, and the hopeful undercurrent to her realisation instilled the Doctor with a cold flood of baseless guilt. “Does that mean—?”

“When the sun comes up, I’ll vanish,” the Doctor explained quietly. “I’m sorry, Yaz.”

Yaz wilted. They both knew they had only a couple of hours left of true night, and that was no time at all. The Doctor regarded Yaz — her astoundingly visible hurt — and wondered if she regretted ever meeting the Doctor. If, amidst all her confusion and shock, she was remarking at how none of this ever would have happened if the Doctor had just left her alone. The Doctor wouldn’t blame her for that.

“There’s still so much I want to know,” Yaz said.

“I know. We can still talk, though,” proposed the Doctor, choosing to believe that Yaz would still want that. “We can talk every day, if that’s what you want.” 

Yaz looked the Doctor in the eye for the first time in a while. The Doctor greeted her gaze with a smile she hoped was optimistic; warm. “I won’t be able to touch you again for another year,” uttered Yaz, the sentiment steeped in disbelief. In unwillingness. In sorrow. She reached for the Doctor’s hands, prised them from the ceramic of her mug, and held them tight in her own. “Stay with me? Until sunrise?”

The Doctor started. “You — you don’t want me to leave?”

“Why on earth would I want that?” asked Yaz, clearly flummoxed by the Doctor’s assumption. “Doctor, this doesn’t change anything. I mean, yeah, it changes everything — but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. You’ve always been kind to me, and honest with me. That matters more.”

Honest. Did it count as honesty if she hadn’t told Yaz the truth of how long she’d known her? Did it count as honesty if she didn’t reveal that she was allegedly Yaz’s soulmate? She swallowed her secrets and they burned like acid.

“Okay,” she muttered, “I’ll stay.”

* * *

Dawn approached slowly — a distant menace.

After washing the night off her, Yaz climbed onto her bed in an oversized tee and boxer shorts and let her head lean against the Doctor’s shoulder. The Doctor was still mostly dressed, save for her boots and jacket. She wrapped an arm around Yaz and stroked her hair absently, constantly eyeing the window for signs of first light. 

“So, do you really have wings?” asked Yaz, affording a glance up at the Doctor’s face. 

The Doctor smiled. “I do. Tucked away, for now.”

“You said you’d show me.”

“Another time, yeah?” she vowed. Yaz already had a lot to process as it was; she couldn’t imagine a pair of luminous, polychromatic wings sprouting from her back making things any easier. 

“What else can you do?” Yaz wanted to know. “How do you even decide who to shoot? Are there—”

“Yaz,” the Doctor cut in softly, “you can ask all the questions you want tomorrow. Do we really have to talk right now?”

Yaz picked at her cuticles. “No, I guess we don’t.”

To hinder her fidgeting, the Doctor reached for one of Yaz’s hands with one of her own and wound their fingers together. They fit so well. She wondered if that was a prerequisite for soulmates: hands which slotted perfectly together. 

The Doctor felt Yaz readjust her head on her shoulder and when she looked down, she found that Yaz was already watching her. They did nothing but sit and regard one another in the silence of a still slumbering world for a long moment — and then the Doctor recalled something Yaz had said to her earlier. _Next time, you don’t have to ask._

Yaz seemed to know what the Doctor was about to do before she did it, because they both leaned in to one another at exactly the same moment. Another prerequisite, she supposed. Synchronicity. 

Tender and ever-so-deep, they kissed. The Doctor cherished the kiss even as it happened; folded it up and tucked it away in the chamber of her hearts that she might not soon forget Yaz’s every inebriating flavour. Next thing, the Doctor was easing Yaz onto her back and Yaz was tugging the Doctor on top of her by the fabric of her shirt. The Doctor paused the kiss, lips hovering just millimetres from Yaz’s, and asked a question with her eyes alone.

“Touch me,” breathed Yaz, “while you still can.” 

So, she did.

The Doctor couldn’t remember ever being so careful with anybody before. She planted open mouthed kisses on her neck and ran her hands up the length of her body, noting every curve and peak and valley and the reactions each of them made against her touch. When she tugged at the hem of Yaz’s T-shirt, she felt a hand staying her own and looked up. 

“Can we — d’you mind if I leave it on?”

“Not at all,” said the Doctor, and kissed her just to prove it. 

She wished she could take her time with Yaz — get to know every single inch of her and give her a kind of pleasure she’d remember always — but their enemy the sun was marching fast over the horizon and she couldn’t afford to tempt it. 

When she slipped a hand beneath the waistband of Yaz’s boxers, the Doctor found that Yaz was more than ready for her anyway. Yaz sighed against the Doctor’s ear; dug her fingers into her back. She might well have been digging for feathers and wingtips. The Doctor was inside her, tongue at her throat, chests brushing against one another in tandem through the material of their shirts — and she caught Yaz smiling to herself. 

“What is it?” the Doctor asked.

“Does this — does this technically make my body consecrated ground?” panted Yaz.

The Doctor laughed. She brushed a strand of hair out of Yaz’s face — just like she’d ached to do for so long. “If you could see yourself right now, Yaz,” she said, curling a finger and watching Yaz’s smile twist around a soft gasp, “you’d know it’s the other way around.” 

Breathless in the blue light, Yaz unravelled thread by thread beneath the Doctor. Her every quiet moan — heaven. Though it was glorious, it was an encounter tinged with sadness. Desperation. They had never been closer, and yet they were already missing one another. Yaz gazed openly at the Doctor while she fucked her, as though she were committing every minute detail of her face to memory. Then, as she neared her apotheosis, she pulled the Doctor in for a kiss. It was to be their last one. 

Yaz came around the Doctor’s fingers with a barely contained whimper. Her warm cheek was pressed against the Doctor’s, fingers knotted in the shoulders of her tee and eyes squeezed tightly shut. By the time she slumped back against the mattress and opened them again, the first notes of morning light were spilling over the pillow. 

Yaz could see the Doctor no more. 


	4. hieroglyphics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for discussions of domestic abuse/suicide attempts  
>   
> also there's smut in this chap so. prepare to get whiplash i guess  
>   
> OH and i'll just proofread later please do ur best to look past any mistakes lmao

Crisp, frosted grass crunched beneath the sole of the Doctor’s boots. Beneath a striking blue sky and frigid rays of unaffecting sun, she slunk through the playground and reached for an arrow at her back. The pulse grew ever stronger as she weaved amongst pink-cheeked and pint-sized children. They charged past her or got under her feet or else barreled, unaware, right through her. Picking over them, the Doctor circled the roundabout and ducked under the monkey bars until grass gave way to soft, dry sawdust — at the centre of which was a set of swings. 

“ _So, how come you can touch a phone but you can’t touch me_?” Yaz asked as a voice in her ear.

“Hang on.”

On the swings, respectively, were two young girls still in their bright red, primary school jumpers. Best friends since the cradle, and the Doctor was about to throw an arrow in the works. Attentive eyes tracked the trajectory of the swing as the redhead on the left, all freckles and smiles, propelled herself higher and higher and higher. 

When the Doctor nocked her arrow, time slowed. Brilliant strawberry blonde hair haloed the girl’s face and a toothy grin betrayed her utter naivety to her impending fate; to half a life spent pining over a woman who wouldn’t love her back until the Doctor was due to return for her decades later. For this one, endless second — suspended in the air with her head thrown back in laughter and her best friend by her side — she was free. Her sweet heart was her own. Drawing back her bowstring, the Doctor muttered a quiet apology and then let her arrow sail. 

A fine shot. The tip pierced the soft, impressionable tissue of her heart and the world resumed its normal pace as gravity dragged the girl from her place amongst the clouds. Still laughing, for now, as her pulse fizzed and sparked like firecrackers around her. The Doctor wondered if she’d be able to retain her sense of humour through what was to come. 

Lowering her bow, the Doctor turned her back on her bitter conquest and walked away with her head hung low. “Sorry, what was your question?”

It had been almost a week since Valentine’s Day. 

As ever, the days succeeding it had been laborious and hadn’t granted her much rest. She hadn’t even been able to stay with Yaz longer than a minute past the rising of the sun before the first pulse called her to action; no matter how much it agonised her to watch the look on her face when she opened her eyes and found herself alone. Still, they spent as much time as possible talking over the phone while the Doctor worked, not least because of the multitude of questions Yaz sought answers to. 

And now, finally, the workload was beginning to lighten as the Doctor finished readjusting heart maps and tending to reworked pulses and went back to carrying out fixed fates.

“ _You can touch physical objects, right? Like your phone_?” Yaz repeated. “ _So, why not me_?”

“Material objects can be transferred between planes relatively easily, but anything alive — anything with a pulse — it’s impossible,” explained the Doctor, emerging from the playground out onto the street. 

“ _Does that mean you can interact with anything? Could you go around, like, haunting people? Throwing lamps about and stuff_?”

The Doctor chuckled under her breath. “That’s your question? Your knowledge of the way the world works has just been turned entirely on its head, and you’re wonderin’ if I fly around throwing lamps at the wall for my own amusement?” 

“ _Well, do you_?”

“Sounds like a great way to get your wings torn off your back.” As she said it, the Doctor rolled her shoulders and then, from between her shoulder blades, her wings unfurled to their full length and the Doctor sighed her relief as she flexed them out. It didn’t do to keep them tucked away for so long. 

“ _That can happen_?”

“Dunno.” The Doctor plucked her bowstring and shrugged. “Anyway, it wouldn’t work. The moment the object leaves my hand, any momentum I put into it dissipates. The lamp wouldn’t move because, according to the physics of your world and how our planes overlap, nothing technically touched it. Does that make sense?”

“ _Not really_ ,” admitted Yaz. “ _What changes on Valentine’s Day, then? What lets you interact with our world_?” 

The Doctor tilted her head towards the sky. “That’s just the way it works.” Kicking off the kerb, she ripped like a bullet towards low-slung clouds and then hovered a few thousand feet from the ground as she got her bearings, picked out the familiar shoe horn shaped building, and then tipped forwards to zip back down to earth. 

“ _Don’t you ever question these things_?”

“All the time.” 

“ _I’m just saying, if there’s a way around it_ —”

“There isn’t.” The Doctor sunk through the roof and descended, slowly, until her feet hit solid ground. Yaz was alone in the locker room of the precinct, shoving a duffel bag into her locker with her earphones in. “Y’look really good in uniform, Yaz. Proper official.”

Yaz stilled. “Are you here?”

“Right next to you,” revealed the Doctor, taking a step closer. When Yaz turned to her right, she said, “Other side.” Yaz looked her way, eyes sweeping fruitlessly around the room. “There you go.” 

Hand curling around the top of her locker door, Yaz pulled her lower lip between her teeth and the Doctor tried not to dwell on how long it would be before she got to substitute those teeth with her mouth. “Can you — do you think we could try again?” Yaz asked nervously. 

“Yaz…”

“Please?”

The Doctor sighed, reluctant. When she lifted a wary hand to Yaz’s face, she could already preempt the outcome when she herself was unable to feel the warmth of her skin; the impossible softness of her cheek. “Anything?”

Yaz’s shoulders sagged. “No.”

Though she hadn’t dared to hope, the Doctor still felt the clean blade of disappointment slip between her ribs all the same. She dropped her hand to her side. One day, that hand would hold Yaz again. It just wouldn’t be today. In the meantime, they’d keep trying. Was it such a stretch to believe that the sole human on the planet who could hear the Doctor’s voice might also come to know her touch? The Doctor didn’t think so. 

“I have to start my shift,” Yaz announced dejectedly. She lifted her sleeve and gave the pad of her bracelet a single stroke. The Doctor watched her own bracelet light up; felt Yaz’s phantom touch grace her skin. 

They’d come up with a way to communicate using the bracelets alone for when verbal communication wasn’t an option. One stroke meant, _I miss you. I’m thinking of you. Hello. Goodbye_. Two meant, _I need to hear your voice_ — _can you call?_ Three strokes was for emergencies. It meant, _drop what you’re doing; I need you right here next to me_.

The Doctor gave her bracelet a single stroke. “Can’t you just stay on the phone?”

“I have to leave it in my locker when I’m working, Doctor,” Yaz reminded her for what must have been the hundredth time. It didn’t stop the Doctor from asking every time. 

“I miss your voice already,” whispered the Doctor.

Before Yaz could respond, a trio of officers burst through the door, laughing and joking amongst themselves and affording Yaz a brief greeting and a quip the Doctor didn’t catch. She sent them a strained smile. Affording a subtle, apologetic glance at the spot where the Doctor still stood, Yaz pulled out her earphones and stashed her phone inside her locker. She closed the door, head ducked like she was debating another look over her shoulder. Instead, she turned on her heels and walked away. 

The Doctor pulled her headphones down around her neck, heavy eyes watching the door swing shut in Yaz’s wake. Ten hours. She just had to wait ten hours, and then she could pick up the phone and call her again. Hopefully, it would be a busy day in the meantime. 

Turning around, the Doctor skidded to a halt when she almost collided straight into Bill, who was leaning against the lockers with her arms folded accusingly across her chest. “You’re getting reckless, showing up here.” 

“Bill?”

“You’re gonna get caught, mate,” she said, standing upright and uncrossing her arms, “and who knows what they’ll do to you? Seriously, what are you playing at?”

“I — I don’t know. Really, I have no idea.” The Doctor slumped on one of the benches in the middle of the room and dragged a hand down her face. “I’ve never felt like this before. Ever. I didn’t think it was possible.” 

“She’s _human._ ”

“I know that, Bill. Thank you.”

Bill took a seat beside her and leaned forwards with her hands steepled. She looked over her shoulder at the Doctor with pursed lips. “It’ll never work out. You know that, don’t you?”

“Oh, nice blue-sky thinking, that,” bit the Doctor. “Did you come here just to make me feel awful?”

“I’m just tryna understand, Doctor!” rebutted Bill, spreading her hands defensively. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. It’s big. And, frankly, it’s a little bit scary. You’re disrupting the status quo in a huge way, right now.” 

“Who’s to say it hasn’t happened before? You said I’m not the first one to come across someone whose pulse wasn’t readable — maybe Pandora found her soulmate, too?” theorised the Doctor. She’d been thinking on it a lot. If she wasn’t the only Cupid to have gone through this, maybe that meant it wasn’t just a weird fluke of fate. Maybe there was cause, reason; hope. 

“Yeah, and then Pandora went missing!” Bill shook her head and regarded the Doctor as if she were losing it. “Did you forget the part about her dropping off the map? Never to be seen again? I thought that was a pretty key aspect of the story, personally.”

The Doctor got to her feet and ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “I just can’t help but feel like we’re being kept in the dark about something. Something important.”

“‘Course we bloody are. We’re foot soldiers, mate. That shit’s way above our paygrade. But I can tell you one thing,” Bill went on as she, too, rose to her feet, “if they’re making us vanish for asking too many questions, then you might wanna consider holding your tongue.”

“But…” the Doctor dropped her voice to a whisper, “don’t you ever wish you could be like them? Don’t you wish you could just have a normal life and — and _feel_ something? That’s what she does for me. Yaz, I mean. She makes me feel things beyond boredom and loneliness. She makes me smile, Bill. Ear to bloody ear. I smile so much sometimes, my cheeks ache. I haven’t felt that in — god, have I _ever_ felt that? Have you?”

Bill frowned at her and the Doctor knew she was crossing an invisible line they all knew without needing to be told that they weren’t to cross. Cupids didn’t talk to one another like this. Not ever. “I don’t mind my life, Doctor. I get to travel, I get to live forever; I have _friends._ ” She paused. “Maybe if you made more of an effort with the others—”

“The others are all the same,” dismissed the Doctor, leaning her back against the lockers with a huff. “They’re just mindless. All they do is follow orders.” 

“And me?”

The Doctor started, looking up to discover that she’d offended her friend. “C’mon, you’re different, Bill.” 

“I’m not, actually. You’re the one that’s different, mate. You’re changing. Because of _her_.” At this, she tilted her head towards the direction in which Yaz left the room. “Have you even spoken to the Lords, yet?” When the Doctor only looked down at her feet by way of a response, Bill groaned. “Christ, Doctor. It’s only a matter of time before they find out, you know? All it’ll take is for them to make an unannounced visit or even glance at your map to know where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to.”

“I’ll talk to them,” the Doctor assured her. When Bill raised a dubious brow, the Doctor rolled her eyes. “I will! I’ll talk to them.”

“Yeah? When?”

The Doctor faltered. She’d do it — she would. She had every intention of getting to the bottom of things. But for now, she needed more time. More time with Yaz. In case, one day soon, they tore her out of the Doctor’s arms for good. 

“Soon.”

* * *

Soon was subjective. 

Especially for a Cupid.

Weeks and then months ticked by. Always, the Doctor would convince herself that another day of Yaz’s voice — her hearty laughter, her dry jokes, her long distance touch brushing absently over the skin of the Doctor’s wrist as she worked — was all she needed. Always, she was wrong. 

The Doctor stopped visiting Yaz at her flat and at her workplace. This development disheartened them both but when the Doctor explained her fears about getting caught, Yaz begrudgingly accepted it. In turn, this forced them to devise creative ways around their unique predicament. 

For their first date, they went to the cinema. 

Yaz sat on an empty row and the Doctor texted her to let her know that she was in the chair to her right; told her to open her hand that she might hold it. And she did. Though neither of them could feel it, the Doctor allowed her fingers to slot between Yaz’s. It wasn’t a sad movie, but halfway through, the Doctor noticed that Yaz’s eyes had gone glassy and her jaw quivered with the strain of somebody holding back a sob. They didn’t try that again. 

Date number two was spent at a museum. This way, at least, Yaz could talk to the Doctor on the phone. It felt a little less sad; a little less hopeless. 

They wandered into a World War II exhibit, and Yaz’s was the only shadow cast against the projection of glitching, black and white footage of rolling tanks and drone bombs and marching soldiers. The Doctor got to recounting her own personal recollection of the events of the war — more specifically, the love stories that bloomed in the devastation. 

Soldiers on the same battalion falling in love only to die in one another’s arms on the battlefield, orphaned teenagers finding solace in one another’s skinny, wanting arms as they starved for everything except a hand to hold; the grieving housewife whose beloved neighbour cradled her every night as she cried herself to sleep — until she ran out of tears to cry and found a way to move forward in the crook of her friend’s neck, the curve of her soft lips, the sincerity of her every sweet nothing. 

Yaz hung on the Doctor’s every word. She liked to hear about her work; found it fascinating. “So, you can see everyone’s pulse, right?” she asked as they made towards the next exhibit at a leisurely pace. Yaz, she noticed, took her time in each room — and she realised that was probably because she was never sure when the Doctor was done looking. As if the Doctor was looking at any of it. As if she could even think of tearing her eyes away from Yaz when they were together. 

“That’s right,” confirmed the Doctor. “Usually requires physical touch, unless it’s their time.” 

“Time for you to impale ‘em through the heart,” Yaz cringed. She’d thought the Doctor was having her on, to begin with, when she’d revealed that that was one of the aspects of Cupid lore that rang true.

“It sounds grim, I know, but it really isn’t that bad. It’s quick, it’s painless...” Unseen, the Doctor’s gaze lingered over Yaz’s face. “What comes after — that’s the hard part.” 

As they meandered into an exhibit on Ancient Egypt — a dimly lit room with encased scrolls of parchment, fragments of pottery, and a couple of sarcophaguses cordoned off with red rope — the Doctor watched Yaz twist her earring. She usually did that when she was anxious about something. Slowly but surely, the Doctor was learning to read Yaz’s tells; to translate her body language as if it were a rare form of script only the well-learned might hope to understand. Yaz studied the hieroglyphics on the wall and the Doctor studied the ones on Yaz’s face.

“Somethin’ the matter?” asked the Doctor. 

Yaz blinked her way back to the room. Sometimes, the Doctor wondered if Yaz forgot she could see her. “No, yeah, I’m…” she trailed off; exhaled her pretence. “Actually, I were wonderin’ — what about my pulse? Can you see it?”

Despite how close they had become, the Doctor had still yet to reveal the truth of Yaz’s pulse to her. This had been made easier by the fact that Yaz hadn’t asked, which the Doctor put down to fear of her revealing that she was not destined for the Doctor; that what they had was truly doomed to end the day the Doctor unsheathed an arrow with Yaz’s name on it. 

The Doctor hated keeping things from Yaz, but it would be unspeakably foolish to reveal her fate when the Doctor didn’t even know how that fate was destined to play out. The one time Bill had read Yaz’s pulse, it had been murky and unclear. She hadn’t been able to follow it all the way through. So, why worry Yaz with even more questions until she had some answers to offer? More to the point, why give her hope if it turned out that it had been false all along?

“I, um — I haven’t seen your pulse,” said the Doctor. Not technically a lie.

“You mean you haven’t looked?”

“I haven’t seen it.”

Yaz came to a stop before the headless statue of an old Egyptian deity. “You’re doing that thing again,” she muttered, keeping her voice low so as to avoid irritating the other visitors.

“What thing?”

“That thing you used to do when you didn’t want to lie to me. Answering a question without really answering it.” She considered something, then; head tilted in contemplation. “If you haven’t seen it, that means — so, you don’t know about my history? None of it was your doing?”

Intrigue piqued, the Doctor searched Yaz. “What wasn’t my doing?”

But Yaz just closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose as if she was relieved, and the Doctor couldn’t figure out the reaction for the life of her. “Nothing. Nevermind.” 

“Now, who’s avoiding?”

* * *

Towards the tail end of spring, the Doctor was walking the streets of Sheffield as the last dregs of light waned in the far distance. Streetlights flickered on around her as she walked, illuminating her path as she tried to balance on the edge of the kerb without falling onto the road. Yaz was on a late shift, which meant it was still a few hours before they could talk. For the most part, the Doctor had had a hectic day, so Yaz’s absence was just about tolerable. Now that much of the world was drifting to sleep and closing their hearts for the night, boredom was fast creeping up on her. 

She was in the midst of considering a short trip to London to check in on Bill, whom she hadn’t spoken with much since their disagreement, when she wandered into the warm orange glow of a living room window. The Doctor stepped up to the house and peered inside. Across the open plan space, she could make out a family of five eating at the dining room table. 

At the head, the dad stood and carved a roast chicken and made a bit of a mess of it and his wife teased him in good nature — a glass of red hovering halfway to her lips as she laughed. A set of twin boys pinched one another under the table, and their elder brother helped himself to a roast potato from one of their plates while they were distracted. A scene of general domesticity like so many she’d witnessed before. 

Lately, it wasn’t so easy to pretend it didn’t make her ache. 

Specifically, the ease with which they touched one another. Like it was nothing. Like they didn’t even think about how privileged they were to be able to ruffle one another’s hair or squeeze an arm as they sidled past or even dole out a half baked slap on the shoulder at a joke made in poor taste. If she could, the Doctor would have shaken them. 

_Look around_ , she’d urge. _Look at what you have and don’t ever take it for granted. Not all of us are so lucky. Hug more. Kiss more. Hold one another for no reason other than because you can._

When, in that moment, the Doctor felt a gust of wind and heard a rustle of feathers over her shoulder, she turned expecting Bill. Two wings the colour of an ugly bruise — all black and mulberry and deep, glittering twilight — severed those expectations in half in a motion almost as severe as the wicked smile waiting to greet her. With a startled curse she couldn’t restrain, the Doctor stumbled backwards.

“Missy?”

“D-013,” drawled Missy, bringing the tip of her umbrella to rest on her own shoulder. “Taking a break, are we?”

The Doctor’s hearts challenged one another to a race the Doctor hoped neither would win and her blood plummeted to sub-zero temperatures. She wasn’t ready. Not now. She hadn’t had anywhere near enough of Yaz and she was beginning to think she never would. But — she’d been careful, hadn’t she? She’d been so _careful._ Perhaps Missy’s visit was about something else entirely — although rational thought reminded her that she didn’t just pop by for friendly chats. It wasn’t her style.

“It’s a slow night,” explained the Doctor, reigning in her hearts and attempting to do the same with her pitching voice. 

Missy slipped a hand into the pocket of her pantsuit, wincing her disdain when she saw what it was that had caught the Doctor’s attention. “Miserable, isn’t it? The way they live? I can’t imagine anything so tedious or pointless as a life spent rotting in front of television screens and boxy cubicles while they continue to rot the world around them with their very existence.”

“Our whole lives are dedicated to them,” frowned the Doctor. “How can you say that?”

“No, dear — _your_ whole life is dedicated to them. We upstairs deal in fates far more important than your average Joes and Janes and Jennies and — oh, don’t even get me started on Johns. John Smith? Who let these morons name their own children? Ridiculous.”

Eyeing the resentment blistering Missy’s face, the Doctor opted not to attempt to defend humanity any further lest she worsen her perpetually dour mood and reap untold consequences for herself when the gavel came down (if that was indeed why Missy had stopped by — to punish her). “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in the Citadel?” 

Missy tore her gaze from the window and the Doctor kept her expression as temperate as possible when it landed on her. “Walk with me.” When Missy turned and set off down the street, the Doctor was left with no choice but to start after her. “I’ve been looking over your map.”

“Oh?”

_Shit_.

“Mm. Seems you defied me. Up until a few months ago, you spent the better part of a year frequenting Yasmin Khan’s household.” Missy was maintaining admirable restraint over her anger at present, but it was undoubtedly there. Seeping through her every enunciated syllable. Simmering like heat on tarmac and all but distorting the air around her. “Was I or was I not clear when I instructed you to steer well clear of that woman?” 

Right here was an opening; a chance for the Doctor to be honest and seek out the answers to a conundrum she’d been puzzling over for more than a decade. The Doctor’s eyes tracked the razor sharp tip of Missy’s umbrella as she twirled it in circles at her side; it glinted in the glow of an impending lamppost. Something about it gave the Doctor pause.

Why should she be honest with somebody who hadn’t shown her the same decency in kind? Why should the Doctor have to risk losing her only source of happiness merely to sate a woman she despised? True, the Lords might be the only ones with a set of keys to the truth — but the Doctor wasn’t even positive she was ready to open that door. So, rather than hold up to the promise she’d made to Bill, or the countless promises she’d made to herself, the Doctor took the coward’s way out. 

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she shrugged. “She bumped into me last Valentine’s Day. It brought back memories, that’s all. S’pose I wanted to wax nostalgic for a little bit — see what they’d been up to while I were away. But I’ve stopped, now. Haven’t been back there in ages.”

“Yes, so it would seem,” granted Missy, albeit suspiciously. “You haven’t so much as shed a feather in the general proximity of her complex since February. Alas, that in itself is rather odd. Almost as if it’s — oh, I don’t know — intentional.”

The Doctor worked a baffled frown onto her face. “That makes no sense. Why would I do that?”

“Why, indeed?”

Missy stopped at the street corner and so the Doctor did, too. Unlike the Doctor’s wings, which emitted, reflected; tossed out an array of vibrant colour, when Missy stood directly under the lamppost her wings soaked up and devoured every shred of light that dared enter their general proximity. Some parts were so black the Doctor couldn’t say with conviction that they weren’t forged from the vacuum of space itself. Or, better yet, from the deepest of black holes. 

“I’m going to be keeping a much closer eye on your flight map, from now on,” divulged Missy, “and you might expect the occasional flying visit, too. The Lords have high hopes for you. It would be a shame to see you squander them.” 

“What? No — I don’t need a babysitter,” argued the Doctor; not least because it would make her illicit relationship with Yaz even harder to maintain than it already was. She hadn’t thought that possible.

“Do you think this is something I do with any measure of thrill? Believe me, there are an infinite number of things I’d rather be doing than keeping tabs on a supposedly seasoned Cupid,” snapped Missy. She took a step forward, out of the lamplight, and her features became steeped in shadow and rage. “Your direct defiance has left me with no choice. You don’t want to know what the alternative is, dear. Take my word for it. This is a kindness.” 

The Doctor didn’t think Missy knew the meaning of the word. “Y’know, she still doesn’t have a pulse,” she said, affording Missy the chance to at last be honest with her and reveal the truth of her own accord. She wasn’t to know the Doctor had already discovered it, was she?

Missy leaned her weight on the handle of her umbrella and crossed an ankle over her leg. “We’re working on that,” she said simply.

“Still?”

“Fate doesn’t like to be rushed.” 

The Doctor gritted her teeth. Lies. Always more lies. “What happened to Pandora?”

“Pandora?” Missy gave an exaggerated shrug. “I’m not familiar with the name, dear.”

“No? ‘Cause she were a Cupid.” The Doctor took a brazen step towards Missy, though her frantic hearts begrudged her for it. “Apparently, she found someone without a pulse, an’ all. Right before she disappeared.” 

A condescending smile warped Missy’s face into something even ghastlier to behold. “And who told you that?”

“Does it matter?”

“Given you’ve only one friend in the world, I imagine I already know the answer anyway. How is B-11L? It’s been so long, I really must drop in and say hello,” Missy said, her every word oozing with threat. The Doctor opened her mouth to make an effort at reversing whatever damage she’d just done but didn’t get the chance before Missy pressed on with added venom. “You really shouldn’t believe everything you hear on the rumour mill. Gossip corrodes the brain.” 

The Doctor balled her fists and tried not to fly off the handle. “I remember her, though,” she spat through gritted teeth. 

“She got transferred.”

“To what department?”

Missy took a step forward of her own. When she lifted the honed tip of her umbrella to sweep a strand of hair from the Doctor’s face, the Doctor refused to shrink away. “You have no right to demand answers from me, D-013. I’m a Lord — you would do _very_ well to remember exactly who you’re addressing.” She smiled wolfishly and let her umbrella swing back down to the sidewalk, where it left a trail of sparks as it dragged along the concrete. “The Cupid you’re referring to was promoted. She dwells in the Citadel these days.”

“There’s usually a ceremony when someone gets promoted.” A Cupid becoming a Lord was an especially big deal for how rare it was that anybody made it off Earth and doffed their quiver of arrows for a back breaking load of bureaucracy. 

“Would you even remember it if there were one?” posed Missy, arching a villainously sharp brow.

Halting, the Doctor considered Missy’s point. _Would_ she? She hadn’t even remembered Pandora until Bill brought her up — and even now, it was a nebulous memory at best. The person they were talking about hadn’t been around since Scotland was still called Caledonia. Though she was loath to admit it, it was entirely possible that in the millennia since, the ceremony had simply slipped from her mind. 

As if following the Doctor’s train of thought, Missy nodded her head. “So, you see, all of your baseless suspicions are easily explained away. It’s boredom — you’re creating conspiracies in your head to bide your time. I suggest taking up a hobby. I hear journaling is all the rage right now.”

The Doctor was on the verge of snapping, then. How desperately she wanted to reveal what she knew about Yaz’s fate and watch Missy try to explain that one so easily. Right on cue, the band at her wrist began to glow and she felt a single stroke graze her wrist. She took a breath; held her tongue. Yaz’s timing was impeccable. 

Missy squinted at the bracelet. “What in Bad Wolf’s name is that?”

“It’s just a — it’s a bracelet.”

When the bracelet did nothing else of interest (the Doctor thanked that Yaz hadn’t given the band a second or third touch), Missy lost interest and let it fall to her periphery. “So, we’re all satisfied then?”

Not quite. “I want to see her,” braved the Doctor. “Pandora.”

“No.”

“But—”

“Lords have more important things to do than spend their time answering to the likes of you, believe it or not,” Missy seethed. Then, after a sigh, “Listen, dear, I’m really not supposed to be telling you this, but — well, there have been some talks about how we’re long overdue for a new Lord. Your name, as it happens, has been bouncing back and forth up there.”

The Doctor rocked back on her heels. “What?” She couldn’t decide whether Missy was being honest or if this was just another scheme to keep her complacent. 

“That’s right. And if you’re a good little soldier, if you suddenly remember how to follow orders, I haven’t a doubt in my mind that soon you’ll be offered the chance to leave this remarkably dull plane behind for good. Doesn’t that sound nice? Coming home at last?”

“The Citadel was never my home,” mumbled the Doctor.

Pitch black fury eclipsed Missy’s eyes and when she next spoke, she did so with her lip curled and every single fang bared. “That is _blaspheme_!” She jabbed a pointed fingernail into the Doctor’s chest. “Keep saying things like that and I guarantee a Lordship will be the furthest thing from where you’re headed. The Citadel is home to us all. Each of you was born there, made there. And, though you won’t remember it, you were raised there.”

“Raised?”

“Oh, yes — I remember when you were but a grotesque little Cherub snapping harpsichord strings with your chubby, tactless fingers.”

The Doctor stared at Missy, attempting to dissect her allegations and discern truth from lies. It was forever a task, where she was concerned. “How long have you known me?” she asked in a voice no louder than the most clement breeze.

“Why, your whole life, dear.” 

“And — and how long is that?”

Missy regarded the Doctor with unchecked pity. “If it’s answers you seek, you can have them all. When you become a Lord,” she claimed, hanging that last word over her like a prize. “But that’ll never happen if you continue to defy me at every turn. Am I making myself clear?”

Head reeling, the Doctor could only nod. 

“Fabulous!” Missy slammed the tip of her umbrella into the ground twice, forcing the Doctor to jump back onto the road when a gaping fissure opened up in the pavement. The Doctor peered into it but couldn’t see for the intensity of the white light pouring out. “Stay out of trouble, _Doctor_. I’ll be seeing you very soon.”

With that, she descended a stairwell of pure light and the fabric of reality stitched itself back together in her wake. 

* * *

Missy’s visit jolted the Doctor. 

Every moment since, she’d been sodden with terror and confusion and even more questions than she’d had to begin with. A Lord? Her? And was it possible that she’d really grown up in the halls of the Citadel? She couldn’t remember any of it. Her recollections only ever went so far back before she hit a wall — and the further from recent history she ventured, the hazier her memories became until they were but smudges and shapes and disembodied voices she couldn’t place faces to.

She opted not to tell Yaz about the encounter. It would only frighten her. Plus, the Doctor wasn’t sure if becoming a Lord was something she might one day want. If it was a chance at finding a home at last, at leaving behind the life of a lonely, timeless wanderer, shouldn’t she at least consider it? She owed that much to herself. 

Though, if she was being honest, she had never thought herself a very viable candidate. Someone like Bill was far better suited; she actually liked being a Cupid. 

Indeed, Bill followed orders far better than the Doctor, who couldn’t convince herself to stay away from Yasmin Khan if she tried (which she didn’t, in all fairness). She continued to steer clear of her flat, and took extra precautions whenever they met — scoping out the area for a long while beforehand, constantly looking over her shoulder, starting at every gust of wind — but she never even contemplated putting an end to things.

One humid summer evening, the Doctor joined Yaz in the field for a date she would occasionally have to duck away from to answer the call of another pulse. Something about summer evenings was inherently romantic to human beings, a drug in the pollen settling in lovers’ lungs and soaking into their bloodstream, so it was always a busier time of year. 

Still, she disposed of her arrows with great haste and darted back to Yaz’s side as fast as her wings would carry her. Yaz sent the Doctor a playlist she made and they both listened to it in sync through their own headphones, lying on the grass and texting one another all the while. 

**Doctor:** _I love this song!!!_

 **Yaz!!!:** _you’ve said that about every single song_

 **Doctor:** _I love them all!!!_

 **Doctor:** _I never really cared about music before_

 **Doctor:** _but now every song makes me think of you :-))_

Yaz stroked her bracelet and the Doctor stroked hers, too.

**Yaz!!!:** _I wish I could kiss you right now_

 **Doctor:** _Me, too :-(_

 **Doctor:** _I think about it all the time_

The Doctor watched Yaz’s thumbs pause over the screen. Yaz was lying on her back, and the Doctor was lying on her side. Gazing. Admiring. Basking. Yaz’s skin was positively aglow — liquid bronze she ached to dip a hand in. 

**Yaz!!!:** _I had a dream about you last night_

 **Doctor:** _What kind of dream?_

 **Yaz!!!:** _what kind do you think?_

 **Doctor:** _Ohhh..._

 **Doctor:** _Was I good? ;-)_

Yaz chuckled beside her and the Doctor beamed. 

**Yaz!!!:** _I was wondering…_

 **Yaz!!!:** _can we try something?_

* * *

It was a couple of days later that the Doctor found herself in a lamplit hotel room late at night. Yaz was standing next to the bed in front of her, her phone on speaker on the nightstand. The Doctor slotted a pair of AirPods in. She’d gone wireless for this. 

“You’re sure about this?” she triple checked. 

“I’m sure,” smiled Yaz. “Just like I was sure the last time you asked. And the time before that. And—”

“All right, all right.” The Doctor took a breath. Ever since Yaz had proposed trying this, she’d been a little nervous. It wasn’t something she’d ever done before, and she didn’t know if it was something she’d be any good at. But she wanted to make Yaz happy. She wanted to try. “So, um, how d’you wanna—”

“It might be easier if you just tell me what to do,” proposed Yaz, “since you’re the only one who can see. Don’t get used to it, like.”

“Right, no. Wouldn’t dream of it.” She paused. “Um, did y’wanna leave your shirt on again?” The Doctor remembered that the last time she’d tried to remove Yaz’s shirt, she’d asked to keep it on. Believing it to have been an insecurity issue, the Doctor had since made every effort to constantly remind Yaz how beautiful she was. 

Yaz hesitated. “No, I don’t have to.”

“Okay. Take it off.” 

Yaz unbuttoned her shirt slowly. When she slipped it off, the Doctor’s eye was drawn to a raised white scar on her abdomen — about four inches long and thick as rope. _Oh._ Not an insecurity issue, then. At least, not in the sense the Doctor initially suspected. But, just as she’d never asked about the faint scar on her forehead, she didn’t pry about the one on her stomach. They each were markers of life lived in the Doctor’s absence; damages she’d endured without the aid of an angel on her shoulder.

The Doctor had Yaz take all her articles of clothing off one by one until she was standing before her, completely naked. And what a sight. “God, Yaz,” she muttered, stepping up to her, “you’re incredible. I really should tell you more, shouldn’t I?”

“Doctor, I think we both know you tell me often enough,” quipped Yaz, though her words were softened by a sheepish smile. 

“Nah, no such thing as enough. Not when it’s you.” The Doctor shrugged her jacket from her shoulders and it dematerialised before hitting the floor. “Get on the bed.” 

When Yaz climbed on top of the sheets, the Doctor followed after her until she was straddling one of her legs. 

“I’m — I’m right on top of you.”

“Where?”

“Left leg.”

Yaz shifted her gaze accordingly, but the Doctor couldn’t help but find it off putting when she looked through her rather than at her. “Close your eyes,” she said, and Yaz did. The Doctor shuffled backwards a little, biting down on her lip because — _fuck,_ Yaz was sublime. Every inch of her. The Doctor so sorely wished she could just step across the invisible boundary separating them and run her hands all over her. She cleared her throat. “Okay, Yaz, I want you to touch yourself. Slowly. And while you’re touchin’ yourself, picture me. My hands, my mouth, my tongue. Picture all the things I desperately wanna do to you.”

Sliding a hand past her pelvic bone, Yaz dipped her fingers between her thighs and tilted her head back with her eyes screwed shut. “What do you wanna do to me, Doctor?” she asked, as the Doctor watched her fingers coax glistening arousal from herself and swore sofly enough to avoid being heard.

“What I don’t wanna do is probably a shorter list,” the Doctor confessed, hypnotised by the motions of Yaz’s hand. She swallowed. “I wanna worship you, Yaz. Pin your body down, kiss you ‘til you’re dizzy. Your mouth, your neck…” The Doctor brought a hand up to Yaz’s breast and cupped her — despite the lack of physical sensations to accompany the gesture. “I’m touchin’ you right now. Fuck, Yaz, you’re lovely. You’re really lovely.” 

Yaz’s breathing was beginning to pick up. “Keep going.” 

“I want to leave marks all over your skin. I want everyone to know that you’re mine; want the whole world to see how real this is. ‘Cause it is. It’s real.” As the Doctor spoke, Yaz worked herself up to a faster pace and the Doctor watched a finger disappear inside her. “I want to taste every inch of you. Run my tongue along your whole body. Kiss along your thighs until I get closer and closer and closer…”

“Fuck, Doctor,” breathed Yaz, “I want you.”

Finding her confidence, the Doctor pressed on with a surer voice. “I’d go down on you ‘til you had to push me away, Yaz. Eat you for so long you forget anything else exists except my tongue inside you.” She trailed a hand down Yaz’s side and brought it to a stop at her hip. “Pick up the pace, yeah? Fuck yourself for me.”

Yaz did as she was told. Both the successive, slick sounds Yaz’s fingers made and her heavy breathing filled the room and overwhelmed the Doctor’s senses like heady smoke. The Doctor covered Yaz’s hand with her own and, though neither of them could feel it, the sight alone made the Doctor’s mouth water. From her perspective, it looked like she was guiding Yaz’s motions. 

“My hand’s right over yours,” she husked. “It’s me, Yaz. I’m touching you. I’m fucking you. I’m inside you.”

The Doctor heard her own words echo back to her from Yaz’s phone. They must have been affecting her, because then Yaz was arching into herself to deepen the reach of her fingers. “You feel so good, Doctor. So fucking good.” 

Yaz’s acclamations were kindling to an already raging fire. “When I see you, Yaz…” she trailed off with a puff of her cheeks.

“When you see me, what?”

“There won’t be a single force alive to keep me from you.”

Shocking her, the Doctor became suddenly aware of a warmth between her legs that she wasn’t accustomed to — not on any day except Valentine’s Day. Cupids typically had no libido for the remainder of the year. But then, how could this not work her up? How could she sit there and watch Yaz fuck herself to the sound of her voice and not want to—

The Doctor unbuttoned her jeans and slipped a hand beneath her waistband. When her fingers found home, she grunted. 

“Are you — are you touching yourself, Doctor?” panted Yaz.

“ _Fuck._ ” The fever-hot moisture waiting to greet her own hand caught her by surprise. She’d never touched herself before. Not like this. It was brand new and it was thrilling and she couldn’t help but groan her delight when her fingers brushed over throbbing nerves. “I’m so wet for you, Yaz.” The Doctor rested her forehead against Yaz’s. Like that, they touched themselves — and as they closed their eyes and imagined one another, it almost felt like it was really happening. 

“How’s that feel? Do I feel good? ‘Cause you feel fucking incredible,” lauded the Doctor. 

Yaz nodded keenly. “You feel amazing. Fuck, Doctor, I’m so close.”

“Me, too.” If the Doctor had been surprised by Yaz’s ability to inspire an uncharacteristic bodily reaction, she was astounded at how quickly she approached the staggering crest of her own pleasure. “Fuck, Yaz — let go. I want you to come. Come for me, yeah?”

And she did. 

Yaz came with a throaty moan beside her, and the Doctor buried her face into the crook of her neck and let the sound of her ecstasy push her over the edge. Together, they came. The Doctor didn’t have it in her to be embarrassed by the sound she made, which might have been Yaz’s name save for the way it tapered off into a guttural gasp. 

When it was over, she lay half-straddling Yaz with a hand fisted in the sheets — until she regained enough sense to roll over onto her back beside her. 

“I’ve never done that before,” the Doctor divulged once her breathing had calmed some.

Yaz laughed. “Well, yeah — it’s kind of a first for me, too.” 

“No, I mean I’ve never touched myself before.” 

“ _What_?” Yaz sent an incredulous look towards her phone. 

The Doctor propped herself up on an elbow, cheek supported by her palm as she covertly observed Yaz. “It’s just not somethin’ we do. I’ve never even had the urge before.” 

“Oh. So — did you like it?”

“I _loved_ it. But I wouldn’t do it with anybody else. I don’t think — I mean, I think it’s just you that works me up like that.” The Doctor swept her eyes freely over Yaz’s body, burnished with light perspiration and what could be construed as a post-coital glow, had they actually just had sex. “How was it for you?”

“Yeah, great. It were great,” enthused Yaz, wiping her hair out of her face with the back of her hand. “I do wish I didn’t have to book a bloody hotel room just to touch myself, though.” 

The Doctor’s face fell. “Sorry, Yaz.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Watching the rise and fall of Yaz’s chest, the Doctor couldn’t help but let her eyes fall once more over the scar on her stomach. She trailed her phantom finger over the white tissue — so stark against her brown skin. “Can I ask? About the scar?”

Yaz tensed up. 

“Shit, sorry — big gob, sometimes.” The Doctor winced remorsefully. “Forget I asked.”

Easier said than done, apparently. Yaz swung her legs over the side of the bed and got to her feet. The Doctor sat up as Yaz slipped into her underwear and began to button up her shirt, hair curtaining the expression on her face as she did so.

“Yaz?”

“Have you really not seen my pulse?” Yaz asked abruptly, the cadence of her voice bordering on angry. 

“I haven’t, I swear.” The Doctor frowned, wondering what her pulse might have to do with her scar. Unless, “Wait, did — did somebody do that to you?”

Yaz pulled on her jeans and shook her head. “No,” she replied, fumbling with the zipper. “I did that to me.”

Struggling to understand, the Doctor climbed off the bed after Yaz. “What do you mean, you did it?”

“Technically, a Honda Civic did it,” she amended bitterly.

“Yaz…”

Heaving a sigh, Yaz picked up her phone and carried it out to the balcony through the sliding door. The Doctor came up beside her as she leaned over the railing and held the phone to her ear. The sun had set a while ago, but it was still a mild night. Four storeys up, they looked out over low rises and sparse traffic weaving through the roads. It was a few minutes before Yaz spoke again. 

“I were nineteen, when it happened.” She took an unsteady breath and the Doctor wished she could put her hand on her back; offer some kind of reassuring gesture. “After high school, I got into this relationship. It were toxic. Really toxic. We were a bad fit and I think we both knew it going in, but — I dunno. We were young.”

“What happened?” the Doctor forced herself to ask through the solid lump in her throat. 

“She became… it got violent. On her end,” Yaz was quick to add — as if the Doctor would have assumed anything different. Yaz clenched her jaw and the Doctor regarded her glassy eyes with an awful pit in her stomach. 

“You don’t have to keep going, if it’s too much.”

“It’s fine. I mean, you’re gonna have to read my pulse one day, right? So you’ll probably see it all then, anyway,” figured Yaz, prompting a surge of guilt to rise like bile up the Doctor’s throat. “Anyway, I kept what was happening to myself. Mostly, ‘cause I were ashamed. There I am, training to be a copper while my girlfriend roughs me up every week. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it?”

“Christ, Yaz, I’m so sorry this happened to you,” rued the Doctor; empty words the only comfort she was able to offer. 

Yaz shrugged. “In the end, it all just became too much. Thought I were stronger than that, but — I just wanted out. Whatever it took.” Eyes glazed, Yaz touched a finger to her stomach absently. “Stood by the side of the highway for ages just staring at the traffic. Guess I kinda hoped someone would come for me, but nobody even knew where I was. Or that I were in any trouble.”

If the Doctor had been there, if she had never abandoned Yaz, might there have been something she could have done? Would a feather in her hair have been enough to spare her such a horrific ordeal? A calming hand on her shoulder? Could she have prevented this? The notion made her nauseous. 

“Next thing, a car comes speeding along and I don’t even think,” Yaz recounted, seething like the memory — and her shame surrounding it — still burned hot. “My feet just carry me onto the road like they’ve a mind of their own.” Yaz ducked her chin to her chest, gripping her phone with trembling fingers and white knuckles. “Shit, I’m sorry,” she choked — and the Doctor realised she was crying. No holds barred weeping, right in front of her, and she couldn’t even offer a hand to hold.

“You’ve nothin’ to be sorry for, Yaz — I promise. Please don’t apologise,” urged the Doctor. “What happened, what you did, it doesn’t make you any less. Everybody has their limits. All of us. You were _forced_ to realise yours — and that should never, ever have happened. I’m so sorry.”

The Doctor couldn’t describe how she felt except to say that if she was ever granted the opportunity, she’d have no qualms about tearing the head clean off whoever did this to Yaz. Her Yaz. 

“When I woke up in the hospital, my family had no idea why — why I would—” Yaz was unable to finish her sentence through the sobs that wracked her whole body. Helpless, the Doctor locked her hands atop her head and tried to blink back her own tears. “Fuck, Doctor — why can’t you just be here? Why can’t you just hug me? I _need_ you. Why isn’t that enough?”

“I don’t know, Yaz,” croaked the Doctor. A warm tear slipped down her cheek. “I’d give anything. _Everything._ I really would.”

Yaz made a sound halfway between a scoff and a cynical laugh. “Just my luck, this. I fall for someone who can’t touch me without hurting me, and then I fa — I develop feelings for someone who can’t touch me at all. How is that fair?”

The Doctor didn’t know what to say; how to console her. All that sprang to mind were false promises and she wouldn’t do that to Yaz. 

“This is never gonna work, is it?” asked Yaz.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know much.”

“I know how I feel. I know that I don’t think about anything else but you. Every waking minute — and that’s all of them, Yaz — you’re on my mind. Constantly. And if I could fix this, if I could do something, I would.” Hearts eviscerated by the wounded, puffy-eyed portrait of Yaz’s face, the Doctor exhaled her profound sorrow. “And I know that I would never hurt you like that.” 

The Doctor ran her thumb along her bracelet and watched Yaz’s light up. Yaz looked down; stared at her wrist. She didn’t reciprocate the touch. 

“But this hurts in a different way, doesn’t it?” she muttered instead. “This hurts.”

Throat tight, the Doctor nodded. “Yeah. It hurts.”

For the first time, the Doctor found herself realising what people meant when they wrote all those sad songs about heartache and heartbreak. She understood the tragedies and she understood people who committed murder and sin for their lovers and she understood why having a heart that beat for somebody else wasn’t necessarily a good thing. 

A pulse permeated the freighted quiet between them. “Oh, not _now_.”

“Let me guess,” began Yaz, turning away from the parapet, “duty calls.”

“I can stay on the phone,” the Doctor offered hopefully.

Yaz shook her head. “No,” she said, “it’s probably better if you don’t.”

The Doctor was halfway through her first word of protest when Yaz hung up. Powerless to do anything else, the Doctor watched her step inside, slide the door closed behind her, and draw the curtains. Her own reflection stared back at her in the glass; a ghost like she. 

* * *

A month had passed.

Behind a desolate old farmhouse, all broken windows and sagging wood, some students were throwing an illicit party on the field. The Doctor had been tasked with the grim duty of inflicting love upon a boy whose apple of his eye was cheating on him with his best friend. While he pined, the rest of the party raged on. Cans and bottles and empty drug packets littered the floor, a speaker blasting a garish grime track that sounded like nothing but harsh white noise to the Doctor. 

She stood with her hand in the bonfire. Flames licked at her skin, lapping madly at her as if her refusal to catch fire was a source of great vexation. She turned her palm over and watched with vacant eyes. It didn’t feel like anything. Nothing ever did.

Except Yaz.

Yaz was the only flame that burned her.

Things had been weird since that night. They still talked often, but they hadn’t gone on any more dates. The Doctor knew how depressing it was to even call it a date when Yaz couldn’t see her and neither of them could touch one another. Still, she liked spending time with Yaz and it wasn’t like she could visit her at home. She missed her sorely.

It didn’t much feel like Yaz felt the same way. Every now and again, when the Doctor called, Yaz wouldn’t pick up the phone. Or she’d decline. She was pulling more shifts, too — claiming that she was trying to save up enough to move out and get her own place. But that meant even less time for the two of them. 

The Doctor hadn’t known how to reassure Yaz about the future of their relationship because, in truth, she wasn’t sure there was one. She hadn’t known how to reassure her about her past, either. What was there to be done about the past? What could she say that would heal her scars and make things right; make it so that nobody had ever laid a finger on her in the first place? In short: nothing. Not a word. For an angel, she was running exasperatingly low on miracles.

That’s when she felt it. 

For the first time in days, the Doctor’s wristband lit up and she felt Yaz’s touch at her skin. One stroke. Two. Three. _I need you here._

Yanking her hand out of the fire, the Doctor shot off without pause. That signal was for emergencies only. It must have been important. Unthinking, she bolted straight for Yaz’s flat and called her on the way. On the third ring, Yaz picked up. 

“Yaz, hi, I’m almost—”

“Doctor,” choked Yaz. 

The Doctor came to a sudden halt mid-air, hearts stopped mid-beat. “Yaz? What’s wrong? Are you at home?”

“No.”

“Tell me where you are.”

Through muffled sobs, the Doctor managed to pick out a few vital clues to Yaz’s whereabouts and cut through the city towards her. Worst case scenarios played on a horrific loop in her head as she recalled Yaz’s harrowing highway tale.

She arrived at the restaurant in no time at all. As she stalked across the dining area, she passed Yaz’s family. Her footsteps faltered when she spotted another familiar face seated at another table — a woman whose face she was finding hard to place. But there were more urgent matters to tend to at present. She pressed on. 

Phasing through the locked bathroom door, she found Yaz sitting on the floor with her back to the tiles; head dropped to her drawn up knees. Her shoulders shook violently and she struggled her way through each shallow breath. 

“I’m here, Yaz. I’m right here.” The Doctor crouched down in front of her, panic etched onto the creases of her face. “What’s happening?”

“I’m — I’m having a — a panic attack,” hiccuped Yaz. “Doctor, I saw her. She — she’s outside. She’s—”

“All right, it’s okay,” the Doctor spoke softly. “Deep breaths, yeah? Listen to my breathing. Do what I do.” The Doctor made sure Yaz could hear her as she took long, deep breaths, holding them in her lungs before releasing them. She’d been around long enough to see a few things in her time; had even read medical journals back to back out of sheer boredom in the past. Not that she ever thought it would come in handy. She was glad, at least, to be able to do this one thing for Yaz. 

As Yaz got into the rhythm on her own, the Doctor kept talking in what she hoped was a calm, soothing manner. She was alarmed beyond sense, but she didn’t think it would do to let Yaz pick up on that. 

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, Yaz. You’re not on your own,” consoled the Doctor. “I’m right here. Right here in front of you. You’re all right. Promise.” 

It was a few minutes before Yaz’s breathing began to settle and her sobs were reduced to slower, sparser tears that the Doctor would have done anything to be able to wipe away. “She’s out there, Doctor,” Yaz managed to rasp after a while. 

“Who, Yaz?”

“Izzy.”

Finally, the Doctor was able to place the woman she’d seen in the restaurant. Yaz’s high school bully — of course. The Doctor hadn’t been able to recognise her without her braces and acne and ridiculously short skirt. Evidently, if the sight of Izzy alone was still enough to reduce Yaz to a full blown panic attack, what she’d put Yaz through during those years must have been pretty traumatic.

So she assumed.

Right up until Yaz spoke two words that cleaved the Doctor wide open with a blade of serrated dread and guilt untold.

“My ex.” 


End file.
